That is pretty cool if true. Definite on that one. Hell I'd love for my two 360's to see each other to do that without using a jump drive/memory card.

It's strange that MS wouldn't work on a similar infrastructure with Valve. They sure gave a whole lot of support to Harmonix for Rock Band.

Yeah I'd love that.

That would Microsoft would have to give up some control of Xbox Live. I don't think they would ever do that.

I'm surprised Sony went for it actually, this could be the most dangerous thing for PSN or XBOX Live if this continues as a trend.

How did we all conclude that you couldn't continue a playthrough from PS3 to PC via cloud storage? That seems completely possible and would be a useful feature.

BTW : I watched a vendor at CES play Portal 2 with a prototype motion controller (he wouldn't let me try it, the asshole). It seemed to play pretty well -- using the controllers to stretch out the cubes was pretty cool. I wonder if they'll enable two Move controllers to work in the same way...

So, I take it this cloud-based storage system is optional since not everyone has their console connected to the internet all the time.

Is the cloud just a remote backup in this case where your saves are still done locally and then periodically synchronized in the background (ala Dropbox).

If not, what if you use cloud storage and your internet connection is down or the service is unreachable for whatever reason. Are you stuck?

These are fantastic ideas, yes. Cloud storage is obviously a growing trend and I support that 100%. Cross platform play would be nice too for games like this, but really it's not a necessity. Everything else is just kind of "oh, that's neat".

All of the people I would play this with are on the 360 anyway so I don't feel any need to rush over for these minor features that I wouldn't use. I don't even have a gaming-quality PC or Mac so that's completely moot to me.

This is how cloud saves work in Steam.

A lot of those features are far more useful on the PC ecosystem versus consoles, but there are some small benefits.

For instance cloud saving is pretty awesome, since I can resume a saved game that I started playing on my work PC or on a laptop while traveling at home. Or never worrying about backing up saved game files ever.

Automatic patching means that updates will download in the background, so you don't have to worry about launching a game, realizing there's a big update, and then waiting another hour before you can play. On the PC, since i'm almost always signed in to Steam, it's pretty nice to have.

There's only one system that has that problem. :P

So does any of this matter considering the shambles that Playstation's online network is in right now?

Hopefully the cloud saving is smart enough to allow you access when you sign in on a friend's console (is this something one can do on a PS3?)

For instance, in the 360 world it would be nice to just take my USB stick with my profile, plug in, sign on as profile #3 or whatever and instantly have access to all my saves from the cloud without needing them on the USB stick as well.

The PSN/Steam integration sounds pretty rad. Originally there was no doubt that I was getting this on the 360, but now I think I'm going to try and convince my wife that it would be better for us to get it for the PS3 (she hates the dualshock, so it'll be an uphill battle).

I'm quite excited for the PSN/Steam integration, and even more excited for Portal 2, especially with the inclusion of Stephen Merchant as the voice of the helper bot.

for your wife.

I suppose getting her drunk could work...

Shambles? I don't get it.

Yeah, it will be great if you leave your console on all the time. Most people don't. Will it even be able to "push" the updates to you?

I like the idea of including the PC version. It's like the gaming equivalent of the digital copy that DVDs/BDs have. It makes sense, as I suspect that the whole "Steam on PS3" idea is to market the PC's Steam store to PS3 gamers. They may be able to get some PS3 gamers to try out the PC for gaming and gain some new customers.

It can easily update while you're doing other stuff; playing another game, watching media, whatever

Can it?

Should it? Yes.

Can it?

I said console, not PC. If they can pull off updating while playing a game on the PS3, I really hope they show Sony how to do it so we can get it for every game.

And I meant console, not PC. Not sure why you thought I meant PC. Downloads work in the background on the 360

I thought you meant PC because you can't download in the background while playing games on the PS3, which is what is getting Steam.

Right, I was initially saying what the benefit of "automatic patching" was as it was questioned earlier as a feature, and how it would be a benefit on the PS3.

Not true, you only can't do that if the game has some online component.

Or watching a BD. Or is that just movies with an online component?

BTW, which PS3 games don't have an online component?

The news about the Playstation 3 version containing a code for a second copy on Steam is brilliant. It gives me a lot of respect for Valve, who I was a bit angry at for releasing L4D2 far too soon (and it being uninspired, and somewhat boring.)

If I buy it, I'll definitely get that version. It'd be nice to be able to play it on console and on Mac.