14 DAY TRIAL // Valve, the company behind the extremely popular Steam digital distribution service, has revealed that it might still appear in the near future on the Xbox 360, just like it did on the PlayStation 3 console, but it's completely up to Microsoft whether such a thing is actually going to happen.
Valve has garnered a cult-like following by releasing popular franchises like Half-Life or Portal, but also played a quintessential part of the digital distribution scene on the PC platform thanks to its Steam service.
Recently, the company partnered up with Sony to bring Steam functionality to the PlayStation 3 console via Portal 2, its most recent game. As you can imagine, people immediately started speculating on if the service is also going to reach the Xbox 360 platform, despite Microsoft's notoriously harsh policies.
According to Valve writer Chet Faliszek, Steam on Xbox 360 is still possible, but it ultimately depends just on Microsoft.
"Maybe, we'll see," said Faliszek to Develop concerning the appearance of Steam on the Xbox 360. "That's something Microsoft will have to decide. There's some things going on with Portal 2 right now, but we'll see."
Valve went on the record multiple times saying that it would love for Microsoft to follow Sony's own efforts and let it bring some sort of Steam functionality to the games it's going to release on the Xbox 360.
Faliszek also mentions that Sony still needs to make some changes to its PlayStation Network in order for Valve to bring proper support, like full pledged updates, to its games through the Steam infrastructure.
"There's some big changes that still need to go through, so we'll have to see, we're open to that and it'd be cool idea but we're just going to have to wait," he said, concerning Sony's current situation.
Valve's next big multiplatform game is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which is expected to once again have support for Steam on the PlayStation 3, not just on the PC or Mac.