Speaking in one of an epic series of interviews currently being prepared for the internets by our busom buddies atPCGamer.com(this one covering Valve's self-precieved failings), Gabe blamed the current XBL system for a big chunk of Valve's console-based woes.
Speaking alongside project manager Erick Johnson and marketing director Doug Lombardi, Gabementioned Valve's currently happy situation of bundling its own Steamworks game update and maintenance tools with the PS3 version of Portal 2, comparing it to the nightmare Valve has had in trying to deliver the full Team Fortress 2 experience to its Xbox 360 customers.
Erik Johnson: Favourite conversation of ours! PS3, so far. The way we%26rsquo;ve dealt with those customers so far, and the product that they have. And the lack of updates on the 360, for TF2, is also a total failure. Those are the ones that sting the worst because%26hellip;
Doug Lombardi: There%26rsquo;s actual ramifications.
Erik Johnson: Because it got all the way through to customers. It%26rsquo;s like a bug. If you fix a bug before it ever ships, it%26rsquo;s pretty cheap.
If you ship it and then fix it, it%26rsquo;s really expensive. Those ones are really bad.
Gabe Newell: That%26rsquo;s why we%26rsquo;re really happy with the current situation with the PS3%26hellip; We%26rsquo;re solving it now in a way that is going to work for our customers, rather than assuming something is going to emerge later that will allow us to fix this.
PC Gamer: Was the mistake on the Xbox side to think that Microsoft would let you update it more often?
Gabe Newell: We thought that there would be something that would emerge, because we figured it was a sort of untenable%26hellip; Oh yeah, we understand that these are the rules now, but it%26rsquo;s such a train wreck that something will have to change.
Want more? Well there's plenty more. PCG already havethe first of their big Valve interviewsup, with six more to be added over the next week. The full version of this one joins it at around 4PM today, GMT, and covers a grand old 13 things Valve think they have failed at. Keep checking back at theValve Weekhub page for more. It's all guaranteed to be great.
