When Gabe Newell made the surprise E3 announcement that Portal 2 was coming to the PS3, he promised that it would be the best console version of the game. He wasn’t kidding around!
More exciting than just the mere fact that Portal 2 would be coming to the PS3 — a platform Newell had grown famous for slamming repeatedly, remember — was the announcement that Valve was working closely with Sony to bring Steam to the PS3, the service’s first appearance on a console. Today, Valve has outlined the specific Steam features Portal 2 players will be able to take advantage of on their PS3.
Those features include persistent cloud storage of saved games, cross-platform play and chat between PS3 and PC/Mac players, and a free Steam Play copy of the game to download on PC & Mac for those who buy the game new and link their PSN and Steam accounts together. That’s three platforms in one! Pretty sweet, huh?
Newell also says Valve hopes to expand the service through future DLC, so it sounds like more is yet to come.
“We made a promise to gamers at E3 that Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3 would be the best console version of the product,” said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. “Working together with Sony we have identified a set of features we believe are very compelling to gamers. We hope to expand upon the foundation being laid in Portal 2 with more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases.”
“We designed the Portal 2 PS3 experience to be very straightforward for gamers,” said Josh Weier, project lead on Portal 2 at Valve. “PS3 gamers will be able to simply drop the Blu-Ray disc in the PS3, link to their Steam account from inside the game, and all their Steam friends (on PC and Mac) will be visible and accessible for chat and game invites.”
Portal 2 warps into stores in April for Mac, PC, Xbox 360 and of course, PS3. Which platform will you be playing on?
Matt Litten is the full-time editor and owner of VGBlogger.com. He is responsible for maintaining the day to day operation of the site, editing all staff content before it is published, and contributing regular news, reviews, previews and other articles.
Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the sad and untimely close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com. After a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez, Matt assumed full ownership over VGBlogger, and to this day he is dedicated to making it one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Matt is a fair-minded reviewer and lover of games of all platforms and types, big or small, hyped or niche, big-budget or indie. But that doesn't mean he will let poor games slide without a good thrashing when necessary! 
