Newell: Microsoft Should Be More Like Sony

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell says that Microsoft needs to relax the terms and conditions of Xbox Live to allow other platforms onto Xbox Live. Newell made his comments related to the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive release, which features Steamworks integration. Newell said that Microsoft would do well to emulate Sony, whose decision to allow Steamworks support in the PlayStation 3 release of Portal 2 resulted in better experience on that platform.

"We certainly can deliver a lot of value to customers to the degree to which we have those capabilities," Newell told Eurogamer. "The PS3, obviously, we made a lot of progress with that. The PS3 customers of Portal 2 are going to start to see the benefits of that with DLC coming out in September. So we'd really like to be able to do that for Xbox customers as well."

"The main thing is having Microsoft get comfortable with it and let us do it," he continued. "Right now, there's a huge amount of updates and free content that we've been able to deliver to people who have The Orange Box that we haven't been able to deliver to the Xbox because of the restrictions that have been placed on us on Xbox Live.

"We'd love to see those relaxed. Hopefully that will help Microsoft see that's a good strategy for making customers happy, that the barbarians won't tear down the walls of Xbox and turn it into some chaotic wasteland."

Source: Eurogamer, Edge