More information comes on Valve’s online gaming service Steam, alongside juicy Portal 2 news.
While the announcement that Valve would be bringing their impressively popular online gaming service to Sony PlayStation 3 users was announced in June of 2010, we had a few questions as to how it would work: would we finally be able to have a PC vs console portal deathmatch?
As detailed by Gamespy, Valve are launching Portal 2 on the PS3 on April 21 in the United States, which we get slightly earlier on April 19 in Australia, and which will include most Steam functionality available to PC or Mac gamers, with chat services and cloud storage available for game saves.
Though the save files are not compatible between the two platforms, this is still a nice redundancy that helps to prevent corrupted files and maintain progress throughout the significantly longer campaign.
This move to a steamier PS3 experience also suggests a big step towards bringing console gamers closer to their mousier cousins, as Portal 2 is now offering its extensive co-operative campaign as well as multiplayer matches between any user of the game on either platform.
Gamespy quotes Valve President Gabe Newell as seeing the PS3 console just as valuable as the PC, and Valve will "hope to expand upon the foundation being laid in Portal 2 with more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases."
And for a metaphorical cherry on top of what is already a pretty tempting dessert, all PS3 copies of the game linked to a Steam account (with a PSN account piggybacked) will unlock a bonus copy of Portal 2 for PC – meaning that it can be played on either platform.
There will be no Steam functionality nor bonus copies of Portal 2 for Microsoft Xbox 360 users.
How this will affect re-selling or trading of Portal 2 on PS3 is unclear, and the linkage to the Steam account on PC may make this a difficult path. We'll keep our ears to the ground for any more on the game in the lead-up to its launch in four months.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012