Will Steamworks come to Xbox 360?

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 14 March, 2011

Portal 2 PS3 features Valve's "first step".

The PlayStation 3 version of upcoming first-person puzzler Portal 2 is the first on Sony's console to support features from Steamworks. But what about the Xbox 360? Will Steamworks ever arrive alongside an Xbox 360 game?

"This is our first step with it," Valve writer Chet Faliszek told Eurogamer as part of a Portal 2 interview published today. "Sony's been a great partner to work on this. This is just our first experiment on it. What goes next? Well see."

In January Valve boss Gabe Newell declared: "We made a promise to gamers at E3 that Portal 2 for the PS3 would be the best console version of the product."

With Steam support PS3 Portal 2 enjoys quick updates, cross-platform play, Steam cloud saving and chat with the PC and Mac versions.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 has traditionally been a closed platform, but Valve has already seen some movement on the console.

"For the Left 4 Dead series we already had the community make some of our Mutations and we've had those go out on Xbox Live day and date with the PC versions," Faliszek continued. "So obviously there is some flexibility there."

"We'll see. But this is our first foray into this. We'll learn a lot from it and we'll see what happens from there."

Meanwhile, Valve cleared up some confusion around the availability of user-generated Portal 2 content across all versions.

The PlayStation 3 version was expected to allow users to download maps made by PC gamers through its Steam integration, but this is not necessarily the case.

"You won't be able to just download a map for your PS3," Faliszek explained. "There's some weirdness there. Part of the confusion on our part was, there are things we talk about wanting to do, and things we can do. It's this fluid relationship with Sony while we're trying to work out what's best for everybody.

"You won't be able to just attach to somebody else who has that content and download it. We would have to do something to have that happen."

Will Xbox 360 gamers gain access to user-generated content?

"Xbox right now we'd have to package it up directly," said Faliszek. "When we do it on Steam we just make it inclusive to the package. We're seeing about that on PS3. There's nothing set on that."

Christian Donlan went hands-on with Portal 2 last month. "With some promising new ideas and some great old ones," he wrote, "Valve shouldn't have too many troubles enticing people back to its mean-spirited geometrical playground."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • PixelPirate #1 1 year ago

    steamworks on 360 will happen the same time, the BBC iplayer arrives.

    probably never, if MS insist on charging for all content and owning it themselves in their closed system.

    Be interesting to see how well the PS3 version turns out.

  • Mister-Wario #2 1 year ago

    I have confidence in Valve to make Steamworks work on PS3, PixelPirate. But Microsoft's closed attitude to their platform makes sense since Steam would arguably be pretty tricky to integrate with Xbox Live.

  • cen4pgb #3 1 year ago

    Why hard to intergrate? contractually may be issues but if PSN can do it no reason Xbox live can't. Iplayer issue is almost entirely different. BBC cannot allow its content on paid only services, MS not want 3rd party streaming in the free section. Valve have no such legal obligations to fufil, or find loopholes in.

  • Scopeh #4 1 year ago

    i really hope they can integrate it sucessfully, playing PC user generated content on a console would be god-like, im talking generally for all games! not just portal.

  • adofessex #5 1 year ago

    As much as I love my 360, Microsoft's stringent policies are not allowing it to live up to what it is capable of.

  • Xardan #6 1 year ago

    Why would anyone want steamworks on a console? Its perfectly fine already on the PC. No need to overcomplicate things.

    If however there were promised benefits from it (besides easy access to user generated content) i would be interested.

  • ChthonicEcho #7 1 year ago

    Considering Microsoft takes every single opportunity to compete with Steam, that is extremely unlikely.

  • asphaltcowboy #8 1 year ago

    Considering we pay for Gold, I really think a cloud-based save game system should be the next thing MS implement - that'd make Gold better value!

  • Toothball #9 1 year ago

    @asphaltcowboy

    I'd very much like to see that too. It would be rather nice if I could go to a friends house, log in and continue gaming from there. Currently my friends have to remember to bring memory cards containing profiles and saves when they come to game at my place, and on some occasions those have been forgotten. I expect that even if they did implement cloud storage, you'd still need direct access to your profile (either physically or via the recovery system), but it'd be a step in the right direction

  • number3son #10 1 year ago

    Nope, not gonna happen. Maybe if MS were trailing far behind in 3rd place this would be a possibility, but as it stands now they have zero incentive to loosen the iron grip they currently have over their console.

  • altitude2k #11 1 year ago

    @ChthonicEcho

    Steamworks =/= Steam. It's not a competitor to GFWL or direct downloads.

  • IneptPercy #12 1 year ago

    In short XBL doesn't need steamworks, PSN does.

  • ChthonicEcho #13 1 year ago

    @altitude2k

    Think, man. Steamworks is a service provided by Steam; if your title has Steamworks, it will require Steam to run. Similarly, GFWL is a service provided by Games for Windows (and Windows Live by proxy). Both in-game services cover matchmaking, text chat, voice chat, achievements and what have you, and both are extensions of a digital distribution service.

    Inclusion of Steamworks in X360 titles would not only be seen as redundant by people over at Microsoft (reasoning that they already have a system that reportedly works), it would also advertise an arguably superior service that is also free and grants them access to two versions of the same game, technically giving them one copy for free.

    Microsoft would go absolutely apeshit.

  • man.the.king #14 1 year ago

    @charliechan

    yinying/scottydog/scotty269/TSB/whatever - is that you?

  • OwningXylophone #15 1 year ago

    As altitude2k stated earlier, Steam & Steamworks are not the same thing. So does the 360 need Steamworks? A quick description of what it actually does should sum that up PDQ:

    "Steamworks provides means of games to integrate with the Steam client, including networking and player authentication tools for both server and peer-to-peer multiplayer games, matchmaking services, support for community friends and groups, statistics and achievements, integrated voice communications, and Steam Cloud support; the API also provides for anti-cheating devices and digital copy management"

    Everything Steamworks does is already handled by XBL, so the system would be redundant and also somewhat akin to MS admitting that SW is the better service. So in short, never going to happen.
    Edited by OwningXylophone at 14/03/11 @ 18:13

  • bladdard #16 1 year ago

    TSB is yinying judging by the way he likes to count xbox and ps3 face off wins. Charlie chan doesn't seem nearly offensive enough to be scottydog and he hasn't called anyone a nazi .... yet.

    No way will MS allow steamworks on their platform but that's not a bad thing, all mods will be properly QA'd before MS will give them the go ahead.
    Edited by bladdard at 14/03/11 @ 18:45

  • BlinkeredAxis #17 1 year ago

    I'd prefer to leave XBL as it is, and use a compromise like the mutations in L4D. Keeping some control of the content and mods on XBL is one of the ways MS keeps the services relatively clean and hacker free. Obviously, there isn't something like Gary's mod for console, but Bungie have provided modding tools for Halo, and didn't need to use something as big a steamworks to make it run.

  • Murton #18 1 year ago

    "There's some weirdness there. Part of the confusion on our part was, there are things we talk about wanting to do, and things we can do"

    Maybe you should work on that? It's really annoying to read one interview one week where you tell us that we can use the Move controller in your game and then read another interview the following week stating that we can't, same thing here with custom maps, can we or can't we? We're hearing yes and no, clearly one statement is a mistake but which one?

    Communication, it's kinda important.

  • man.the.king #19 1 year ago

    @bladdard

    "TSB is yinying judging by the way he likes to count xbox and ps3 face off wins. Charlie chan doesn't seem nearly offensive enough to be scottydog and he hasn't called anyone a nazi .... yet."

    Yes, but yinying seems to have been banned starting yesterday and today we see the first two similar posts from a brand new EG member - charliechan! So there's a good chance the troll may have taken up another alias.
    Edited by man.the.king at 14/03/11 @ 18:50

  • KungFuSpoon #20 1 year ago

    If the console Steamworks is anything like the Mac/PC Steamworks cross-compatibility then it will not only carry across game saves but achievements/trophies. One of the reasons MS say they keep XBL so closed is to maintain the integrity of people's Gamerscore, now regardless of whether you buy that or not it would undermine their argument to allow Steamworks onto XBL. Just take a look at Team Fortress 2, you have to sift through hundreds of achievement servers just to find a proper server, people will just either earn the achievements on the PC game and carry them over the Xbox Live, or they'll (if the feature was added) use achievement maps on the 360 game to earn the achievements.

    Either way Xbox Live could REALLY use cloud save games for gold members, I have an Elite in my lounge and an S in my office (for when the other half wants to watch telly and I wanna shoot zombies) and it's a pain having to remember to stick stuff on a USB stick or recover my gametag whenever I switch, especially sine the S and the Elite use different HDDs so I can't just pop it off one console and onto the other.

  • bladdard #21 1 year ago

    @man.the.king

    See what you mean there's definately something familiar but which one is he?

    Place your bets now!

    Edited by bladdard at 14/03/11 @ 20:09

  • djreplay #22 1 year ago

    So there will never be cross platform play between 360 and PC? That sucks.

  • OwningXylophone #23 1 year ago

    @djreplay

    There has been crossplatform PC/360 games for years... Shadowrun & Universe At War both support it, but you'll find the PC players have a bit of an advantage and so the feature never really took off.

  • mumblyjoe #24 1 year ago

    Speculative article is speculative

  • titan318i #25 1 year ago

    I was reading that Xbox's next update or already released one had the software that is used in adding Steam to PS3, which would lead me to believe that it may be coming in the future. Though I doubt MS is excited for it, they intially turned it down years ago, steamworks just means money lost to them, but they have to remain competitive with PSN.

    Also this Lab Live testing their doing in the US and soon to be in other countries makes me think they're prepping for something like steamworks.