If what GamesIndustry.biz 's reporting is true, Valve Software was aiming to break the paradigm of copycat puzzle games on XBLA by releasing one 2007's best titles over the online Marketplace. Portal, one of the five games included in The Orange Box last Fall, was pitched to Microsoft as a title perfectly fitting an Xbox Live Arcade release. Wah wah...as it turns out, their "apparent" proposal was denied. Doug Lombardi, marketing director for Valve Software told GI when it came to the possibilty of both the Companion Cube and GLaDOS seeing a non-Steam downloadable adventure:

We'd love to do that. Right now it's something we'd love to do. I'd love to sell Portal on Xbox live. [But] the platform holders aren't doing that right now. There's a size limit and all kinds of other things. We've asked them, we said we were open to it. So it's a decision for the platform holder and how they want to make the games available and how much bandwidth they want to [allow].

Dammit. I knew the "lack of standardized hard drives" argument just wasn't going to go away. Ever. Did anyone else totally not see that coming? However, the situation did turn out to work for the best. Portal and its rather epic, four- hour experience went on to sell like sweet, buttery hotcakes in retail form for the consoles, and win numerous awards (not to mention gamer's hearts). But does that mean Xbox Live or PSN could never see a version of Portal (or, perhaps, its inevitable sequel)? Not necessarily, says Lombardi:

I think it's a trade-off, we'll see it one day. It always happens once it's been proven and I think it's been proven now on Steam, so I'm sure it'll migrate back to the consoles just like everything else does.

Portal 2 on XBLA confirmed? One can dream, but maybe this means that when (yeah, I said when, not if) GLaDOS makes a downloadable debut on our consoles, it will include some bonus content. Perhaps that oft-hinted, rumored-to-be-in-development multiplayer? The cake might still be a lie, but imagine how much sweeter it could be with two people.

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absent atavism said:

I would love to see this portal was the highlight of my playing of the OB =-] Love it!

May 04, 2008