Published March 5, 2012 | By Cory Shultz


Steam on the Playstation 3 Would be Huge for Sony

Valve has been the source of talk for a few days now with its rumored Steam based console. After thinking everything through and considering how Valve’s console could change consoles forever, there is a chance Valve could already be working with Sony to bring Steam to the Playstation Brand.

The Orange Box was a title that many gamers played, but if you played it on the PS3 you might have noticed the problems that plagued the port. The issue was the porting of the title wasn’t done by Valve themselves. Instead, it was ported by a 3rd party, which caused all of the issues on the PS3 version.

For a long time, it was rumored that Portal 2 was not coming to the PS3. After months of information on the title, the press releases always read coming to the Xbox 360 and PC. Then at E3 2010, Valve and Sony shocked many people. Gabe Newell came on stage and said Portal 2 will be the definitive version on the Playstation 3. Not only was Portal 2 coming to the Playstation 3, but SteamWorks would be coming with the title as well. This meant that PS3 owners could not only carry their save files from the PS3 to the PC, but PC players could play with the PS3 players as well.

Unfortunately , the PSN hacks incident made it impossible for PS3 players to link up with their Steam friends. The fact is that Steam Works exists on the PS3, and this leads me to believe Valve and Sony could try to bring the entire Steam Platform to the Playstation brand.

Sony used to brag that the competition has a closed system, and the Playstation 3 has an open platform for developers. Players can a connect variety of different Bluetooth headsets, connect a keyboard and mouse, and also get the latest movies from Netflix. The Playstation 3 only does everything, so why couldn’t Steam be next?

If Sony could convince Valve to bring the entire Steam platform to the PS3 it would be a huge blow to the competition. Steam is home to tons of games ranging from Doom all the way to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Being able to play your entire Steam collection to the big screen, without having to purchase any additional hardware would be one of the most amazing features is recent memory.

The issue with this theory is it makes the rumored Steam console completely irrelevant. If Steam comes to the PS3, why would anybody purchase a Steam Console over the Playstation 3? Unless there are more features outside of the rumors, than the Steam Console wouldn’t have any reason to exist.

Sony has needed something to edge them over the competition. The PS3 is a strong system and continues to sell a lot of consoles, but the Xbox 360 continues to sell more units each month. If Sony announced a feature that was as groundbreaking as Steam, it could change the tides tremendously. Sony would then have a console that has all of the latest games, but a library of quality downloadable games that can’t be matched.

Then you also bring in the features of SteamWorks like cross platform game play, and cloud saves between PC and PS3. The list of features is very long. Not to mention the Steam sales, which Myself have fallen victim to on more than one occasion.

The only real big issues are that library of games that are the same on the PS3 and Steam, like Skyrim. Sony would obviously want a cut if somebody purchased the title on Steam, but decided to play it on the PS3. Once you start giving all these different companies a cut of profits, the relevance of having the same titles on both systems seems idiotic. The only way to get around this would be to offer only certain titles that are accessible on the PS3 if you purchase them on Steam.

Maybe this is the future, maybe it’s not. The fact is that Valve has created a system that is love d by many people. Steam is becoming the definitive PC gaming platform, and the competition is struggling to keep up.