I'd have to disagree on your assessment of EP2. It's shorter, but it was also much cheaper than HL2. It also just played even better and there was hardly any slow parts. The ending really sealed the deal. Saddest gaming moment so far. I'm in love with Alyx's voice actor, whoever she is.

Getting the most out of the Cell pretty much requires abandoning a load of the spiffiest language features of C++, and instead thinking in terms of good-ole C, and streaming data.  I would wager that anyone "addicted" to things like templates, virtual functions, etc. (virtual functions being *very* handy, IMO... but kinda bad for performance) would have a lot of trouble thinking in the terms necessary to get a PS3 game running well.

I'm sure Valve's developers *are* talented -- HL2 wouldn't be so good if they were not.  However, it possible that their engine (all proprietary, as I recall) is *very* rooted in heavily object-oriented (and single-threaded) concepts that just don't go over well on the PS3's SPUs.

So... your statement about C++... is kinda backwards.  They'd probably be better off if they only knew the basics of C++, and didn't go to town with all the performance-killing, hard-to-make-parallel features it has to offer.  Dumping those features is why EA, and many companies, are choosing to develop for the PS3 first -- because although those features are fully usable on the X360, they still suck, from a performance perspective.  Developing on the PS3 forces the developers to think in high-performance terms, rather than the crutches C++ offers.  Those crutches got invented because.. yep... C++ programmers are lazy couch potatos by nature (I'm makin' fun of myself here, so that makes it okay ;).

I agree that stating a more honest reason for avoiding the PS3 (other than "it sucks" or some other BS) is a good move, however.

Why? Excuse but I believe you have a 360 so why the fuck should you care???

Dam I blame MICROSOFT!!!!

Why did you have to make such an easy console(360) to develop for compared to the PS3. Due to Microsoft the game was allowed to be released early and create probably over 1million sales compared to PS3 .13million sales. And due to this Valve/EA didn't bother with the PS3 update. Boycott Microsoft!!! Stop being so unfair!!

I think the reasons are fairly obvious. It's difficulty to design for. The time/value ratio for man hours is inefficient. Even if it was efficient, the PS3 hasn't been a significant source of profit for Valve.

To be honest, I seriously doubt that the 360 would be that large of a priority for Valve, except for the fact that it's just very easy to port their games to the console, and costs them very little, thus is easy money. PS3 development is at best, hard money, and at worse, a loss of time, resources, and money.

Valve doesn't like to put unpolished games out. They can't haphazardly throw together an inferior PS3 version of the game and be satisfied. The amount of time and money it would take to get it right, would probably render the project unprofitable.

Thus, you have this sort of thing.

Sony should, I dunno....pay them some money, and they would care more.

This is like some weird bizzaro land, where console gamers are arguing over possible sales for a game, only this time it's a Valve game.

Truth is the majority of sales will still go to the PC version, mainly because that's where Valve is best. Most of the support will stay here, and that's only slowly changing. Support will be better for L4D on 360 than TF2 was, but who knows how good that will be.

Also, Groucho, it's been 100% confirmed by both parties that Google was never planning or interested in buying Valve for Steam...it was an unfounded rumor.

Good point. The vast majority of this game will be sold over Steam(I assume).

That said, that's a major reason for moves like this, imo. Since consoles contribute so little to this PC developers profit margin, then if a console is hard to work on, especially if it has proven to give such little return for such work with TOB, then they're likely to skip it.

They'd probably skip the 360 version too, if it wasn't for the fact that the 360 port is basically a copy/paste job with a multimillion dollar payday at the end of it.

Hmmm... interesting discussion.....

lol why cant anyone just respect my opinion of hl2?! its most likely due to the fact that i had heard it was the greatest game of all time before i played it made it seem so craptactular. i do understand everyone who likes it but please understand....i did not, and respect my opinion :]

I'll put it bluntly. I have yet to meet a gamer who has not liked HL or HL2, unless they just did not like FPS games in general, seeing as how you have played the likes of DOOM3, Quake 4, Far Cry, and some other FPS games leads me to believe one of the following:

a) trolling

b)never actually played HL2

c)broken

d)serious, in which case I outright feel sorry for you.

I'd understand if you were saying Halo or Gears are overrated, but the HL series is almost unanimously considered the top of the FPS genre by gamers. Hence the disbelief.