Valve Hoping For 360/PC Play, Scared of PS3 Online

Valve's movement to the console space has been slow, but this year will see the release of Half-Life 2 on both the 360 and PS3. They seem to be having mixed reactions to that move. On the one hand (according to CVG), they're very much hoping that 360/PC crossplay will be possible for their upcoming Team Fortress 2. On the other hand (according to Game Informer and 1up), their reaction to the PS3's online component is one of fear. Valve's Marketing representative Doug Lombardi: "PS3 is brand new and PS3's online is kind of scary so we're hoping that EA is going to be a strong partner for us. (laughs) It's always the scariest thing when it's not all yours. With the PC it's all ours, Steam is all ours, code's ours, game's ours. On 360 we're making it, we've made it before, we know what the Live thing is, although it's Microsoft's so we kind of know it. PS3 we're not building it, we haven't made a PS3 title before, and we don't really know what PS3 online really is. It's always the devil you don't know that you're the most scared of."

Comments

xbox vs. PC

[MrLeap]

This reminds me of playing quake3 on the dreamcast, and getting trounced by all the folks who played on PC. Are they going to give the console folks auto aim? Or a 40 dollar keyboard and mouse adapter to buy? I hope not, for I'll be playing on a PC, and i'd really enjoy a mouse/keyboard skill buffer to take advantage of.

Re:xbox vs. PC

[Kelbear]

No you cannot have kbm/mouse. Microsoft has made statements that they will not support kbm/mouse(it's trivial for them to allow them to be connected, it's just their interface license that keeps them from working natively). You can google for this.

The implementation varies from game to game. In the case of the first FPS crossplatform multiplayer game Shadowrun, they are giving console player auto-aim, while implementing cursor-speed penalties to handicap mouse twitch speeds so that there will be less value in fast and precision aiming and more emphasis on other factors.

So basically

[earnest murderer]

It's early in the process and they don't yet know what to think about it. But that's not going to stop 1up from passing that along in the most inflammatory way possible.

And people wonder why so many businesses hide behind their PR department.

Console/PC mix

[RichPowers]

Obligatory: How can Valve make it fair for someone with an Xbox controller to fight against someone with a keyboard/mouse setup? I play shooters on both consoles and PCs, and the keyboard/mouse is far superior in terms of control and accuracy. I wouldn't want an Xbox player on my team if he has difficulty aiming. Would Valve have to modify TF2's gameplay to accommodate the shortcomings of the Xbox controller? (As in dumb the game down like EA did with C&C3 - another console/PC release)

Oh, and do PC players and console players really have some burning desire to play with one another? TFC public servers have plenty of trolls and idiots, but no where near as many as I encounter on Xbox live. Fighting with them on Halo is bad enough.

I own an X360, PS2, and PC so I can experience different forms of gaming. And at this point, my PC is still the best for shooter games.

Re:Wii?

[tepples]

The Wii still doesn't allow someone to turn with the speed of a PC user Even if the game binds +Control Pad left and right to quick turning? What about rolling the remote or the nunchuk to turn?

The layout of the remote, and all the variables with the screen's size and the distance to that screen hinders accuracy. Would it be so hard to let the player adjust the pitch/yaw sensitivity?

And that's not to mention that the targetting accuracy varies from game to game. I've had the on-screen crosshairs jittering on the Wii's system menus making it somewhat difficult to quickly select some of the smaller buttons. But then I'll play a game like Wario and the crosshairs are stable and fairly accurate but then there's a slight lag in responsiveness. Would it be so hard to let the player adjust the pitch/yaw moving average width?

I'm sure we'll eventually see something better than the mouse/keyboard combination but the Wii controller isn't it. Does a mouse/keyboard combination allow for more than one player per monitor? Single-screen multiplayer is a big advantage of consoles over PCs, as the price of Wii + $60 eBay markup + 2nd remote + 2nd nunchuk is still less than the price of a decent second PC + monitor.