PS3 Slips Further Down Valve’s Priorities?

Last week came the exciting news and screens of Portal 2, the sequel to the critically acclaimed first person puzzling shooter. Today, Valve have been talking about their plans for the future and opening themselves up so that their games are playable across more platforms.

Sadly for PS3 owners, it is the Mac which is on the receiving end of Valve’s attention as they have announced that their popular Steam client will launch for Mac in April along with their back catalogue of games including the Counter Strike and Team Fortress series’. The good news for Mac gamers continues with the news that all future Valve products (yes, that includes Portal 2) will be released simultaneously with the Windows based counterparts.

It’s not just games which have been announced for Mac but also further evidence that games will become more of a ‘service’ in future with the launch of Steam Play which allows you to buy a game once and then play it on either your PC and Mac, and when used in-conjunction with Steam Cloud, which backs up your game saves online it will enable to continue from where you left off on either platform. Just in case anyone was in any doubt as to where the Playstation 3 fits in to Valve plans, they announced:

“We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360.”

I know the Mac platform is an increasingly popular platform and the popularity of the iPod and iPhone are helping it to break in to the mainstream rather than being a niche machine for designer types, but I suspect the number of Mac gamers would pale into insignificance when compared against the PlayStation 3′s 30m+ install base, especially when you take into account the long established PC platform is regularly outsold by the same games on PS3.

It seems to me Valve might be good at making playable games but aren’t so hot on business. Oh well, c’est la vie!