Valve Reveals Steam Features For Portal 2 On The PS3

News & Rumors

January 18th 2011 • By Vic

Way back in June, when Gabe walked on stage at the E3 Sony press conference, announcing that Portal 2 will be released on the PS3, and that the presence of Steamworks functionalities would make it “the best console version of Portal 2”, many people started speculating about what exactly these features would be.

There were a few interviews talking about it, and Valve said that they would try to establish cross-platform connectivity for coop play between the PC/Mac and the PS3, but they’ve never officially announced these features.

Well, until now.

In a press release sent out today (you can find it online), Valve announced all of the Steam features that would feature on the PS3 version of Portal 2.

Marking the debut of Steam functioning on any next generation console, the features shipping in the PS3 version of Portal 2 include cross platform play (PC/Mac vs. PS3) for multiplayer games, persistent cloud-based storage of PS3 saved games, and cross platform chat (PC/Mac and PS3).

Alright! Cross platform play! Very nice.

Some of you might know that Valve wanted to add cross-platform play to TF2, but failed, because as we all know, all of these projects come to an end because the keyboard and mouse always come out on top in competitive play. However, this time we’re talking cooperative play.

Cross platform chat is also a great feature, and it’s nice to see the Steam Cloud making an appearance.

We really wanted to see auto-updating, though.

However, it appears that Valve has a special treat:

In addition, those who purchase Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3 may unlock a Steam Play (PC & Mac) copy of Portal 2 at no additional cost by linking their PSN and Steam accounts.

Hot damn! That’s awesome! Perhaps this will work in reverse in the future?

“We made a promise to gamers at E3 that Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3 would be the best console version of the product,” said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. “Working together with Sony we have identified a set of features we believe are very compelling to gamers. We hope to expand upon the foundation being laid in Portal 2 with more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases.”

Valve working together with Sony? Jesus, they could like… buy out Mars.

“We designed the Portal 2 PS3 experience to be very straightforward for gamers,” said Josh Weier, project lead on Portal 2 at Valve. “PS3 gamers will be able to simply drop the Blu-Ray disc in the PS3, link to their Steam account from inside the game, and all their Steam friends (on PC and Mac) will be visible and accessible for chat and game invites.”

All in all, this sounds really great.

18th April seems oh so far away.

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