MS should team up with Valve for VR support on Xbox.

No need to take it this far. Sales is talking from his POV and wishes not about the whole industry in name of everyone.

I personally hope that MS doesn't buy Valve. Valve has been great all these years because they have been independent and private. The thing is, I do like MS's current management compared to previous generations. A lot of their divisions are making the right moves and if MS buys Valve, I am sure they will leave Valve alone and let them do their own thing. The problem as always is the next guy or a change in their vision. If the current CEO of MS gets replaced, if Microsoft's vision changes or a number of other things, it could and will affect Valve.

So if MS buys Valve, in the short term we might not see any changes, heck we might even see improvements in some aspects, but in the long term, I think we will see a decline for the platform.

Not sure if it would even be legally possible for Microsoft to buy Steam. Sounds like a big pile of antitrust.

Allies as in your spending on Steam funnels into the Xbox division, fuelling MSs warchest of IPs and revenue. We be gaming step-brothers haha 

Hypothetically speaking, the only way Gabe would agree to anything is if A. The price is right and B. MS only adds to Steam, not take anything away/make it worse. Like adding Game Pass onto Steam would be a great addition. Having a tab on Steam for Xbox Studio titles wouldn’t be a big deal, due to the sheer volume of titles available. Valve IPs going on Game Pass wouldn’t affect you, only add value. 

I never implied to say my hopes supersede yours. But the idea that PC gamers would be involuntarily “conscripted” into the console war is an amusing thought. 

How would adding gamepass on Steam be a great addition for Valve?

Steam makes money of sales, suckering you into buying stuff most of which you will never really play anyway. A subscription service would take away from that. I'm sure they did the math already and there is no Steam gamepass...

Steam has the upper hand, the windows store is not popular by PC gamers to say the least. Any association with the windows store will only hurt Steam. The crap MS did with FS2020 on Steam did not go over well (It just downloads an installer and you're still stuck with the awful windows installer while game time adds up on Steam, which created a huge headache with the refund system)

I don't see much of a partnership happening. The only thing I can think of is to have Valve Index on Series X and MS studios making games for it.

Its arguably less of an issue now than a few years ago. Given numerous companies now operate seemingly successful digital stores and not all PC games are on Steam. It would be incredible for MS as well.

But how much is Valve worth? I would guess considerably more than Zenimax.

That’d be a great partnership. Maybe some IPs would be revived from both portfolios.

Yeah, I egt the whole "support the cause" type thing ya'll guys have going, but I'm not really into that vision. I'd rather they just leave Valve alone and stop consuming.

Look at the "partnership" between Acti and Blizz, which has now more or less turned into Acti just purely owning and restructuring Blizz from the inside out, that's not something I'd ever wish on Valve. 

Having a tab?, why not just do what they are doing currently and just release them onto the store, instead of shoving in an Xbox tab?. Don't need to specifically have such a tab when you can see the games on the store, follow devs on it, search for tags etc. 

Valve IP's going to Xbox consoles wouldn't affect me no, because that's happened in the past, but enforcing Xbox style changes to a client I love would affect me. I don't want their UI cramping Steam's style, nor do I want any MS style changes made to the client in general. Steam's client is worlds ahead of the Xbox app.

You have a dream, your dream conflicts against mine, hence why I see direct conflict. I want things to remain separate as they currently are, not engulfed by one party and assimilated. 

Dunno why it's amusing, it just comes off as petty and pointless. Only trolls and "hur durf I'm winning teh war this time" type people would see that. 

I meant GP on Steam would add value for gamers not so much the company. Plus it would only apply to Xbox Studio titles, not like the vast majority of Steam titles will be affected. I only see that happening if MS acquired them, because giving Valve a cut of GP revenue wouldn’t be ideal.