Portal 2 on PS3 Won't Have Mouse and Keyboard Support

After revealing last week just how Steam will work on the PlayStation 3 with the upcoming release of Portal 2, Valve and Sony have now answered some of the questions sent by existing PS3 gamers.

With the release of Portal 2 on the PlayStation 3, Valve is going to bring its Steamworks platform to the home console, effectively giving the game all the same great features it will have on the PC and Mac platforms, thanks to the Steam platform.

This means access to unified friends lists, Steam Cloud online game save storage, as well as cross platform matchmaking, so that PlayStation 3 owners can enter cooperative matches with PC or Mac users.

Now, Portal 2 project lead Joshua Weier and writer Erik Wolpaw have begun answering some of the many questions that were submitted by PlayStation 3 gamers about the new things brought forth by the game and Steamworks.

One of the most important features concerned whether or not Portal 2 will have support for a mouse and keyboard setup on the PS3, just like on the PC or Mac, given the fact that the console supports both such devices.

Sadly, the Valve team members replied that the effort to implement such a support wouldn't have paid off.

"The whole game is built around playtesting, which extends to the hardware and how people use it. We have people internally who played on the PS3 — we use it all the time — and we constantly iterated it. Luckily, Portal 2’s not a super twitchy, complicated game, so we just focused on making a comfortable controller experience."

The Portal 2 developers also talked about friends list and how both Steam and PlayStation Network friends will show up when you access the Steam overlay during the game.

"And this time around, you can actually play with your PC and Mac friends on your PS3, which is a pretty big deal. They show up as any old friend on your Steam friends list — you don’t even need to know whether they’re on a Mac or PC. You’re playing the same content, the game works the same way…it’s super-seamless for everyone. We’re all about giving gamers choices. Being able to hop into the game, find a buddy, and not care what platform he’s playing on is a pretty cool thing."

They also talked about the mirroring of PlayStation 3 trophies with Steam achievements, saying that when you unlock trophies on the PS3, the corresponding achievements will also be completed on the PC. The system doesn't work when playing on the PC, as PS3 trophies can't be unlocked remotely, only through actually playing on the console.

Portal 2 will be out for the PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 tomorrow, on April 19, perhaps a few hours earlier than anticipated.