In a megaton surprise that nobody saw coming, Valve’s Gabe Newell — who has previously been a vocal critic of the PlayStation 3 — came out on stage at Sony’s E3 press conference and announced that Portal 2 will release on the PS3 simultaneously with the PC, Mac, and Xbox 360. But that’s not all: the PS3 version of Portal 2 will be the only console version to include Steamworks support, which means that all the behind-the-scenes features that PC and Mac players are used to — such as automatic game updates and the Steam Cloud — will come with Portal 2 on the PS3.
The press release also mentions “downloadable content” as one of Steamworks’ main features, so we’re wondering if this means that Portal 2 will receive free updates, just like the PC/Mac versions of all other Steam games.
Newell even went as far as to call Portal 2 on PS3 “the best version on any console,” saying that Valve finally decided to develop on PS3 because it’s “the most open platform of all the current-generation consoles and [Sony] has worked extremely hard to make the platform the most desirable for consumers and developers.” Strong words, indeed — it sounds like Newell is as big a fan of the PlayStation 3 now as he was a detractor at its launch in 2006. As GLaDOS said at the end of the CG trailer shown at the press conference, “I think we can put our differences behind us … for science … you monster.”
Portal 2 will be out sometime in 2011 on PS3, 360, PC, and Mac.
