Proponents of the PC platform, rejoice. I just did an interview with the Valve dudes for Gamasutra, regarding Steam, and resident evangelist Doug Lombardi gives PC gamers plenty to be happy about:"People keep innovating on the hardware to make it a more heavyweight platform; it's maturing more quickly than consoles. It's pretty hard to say they're going to go away completely."
In fact, continues Lombardi, the question mark might be floating squarely in the console's future, as their prices continue climbing and more post-purchase purchases are becoming necessary. "How much longer will that story still have credibility?" He posits.
"Somebody go back and look at next-gen console install base numbers since launch time, and compare it to PSone and PS2. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we saw these guys stuttering out at 25,000 -- nobody's going to get to 100 million, which we saw from Sony on the last 2 [console generations]. I don't think anybody's even thinking of this."
They're also playing with microtransactions-based biz models over in Asia, with the help of longtime free-to-play giants Nexon. Cool stuff.
I also asked if they think EA's Battlefield Heroes looks like Team Fortress 2, like everyone says it does:
"The pair shrugged off the resemblance, commenting only, "How many games look like Quake? How many bands wanted to be like the Beatles after the Beatles hit?"
Some douchebag in the W bar spilled beer on my phone during GDC, and now it totally doesn't work. If you're reading this, douchebag, you owe me a new phone. But before my phone decided it was only capable of dialing the Chinese restaurant repeatedly and without interruption, I'm glad I got to do this interview. It's a rad one, thanks to the subjects, so check it out!
