In the latest Computer Gaming World issue there was a feature where Gabe Newell spoke out about various things with Aftermath and Lost Coast. At the moment though the main thing being pointed out were his comments against Microsoft which is of great interest to me and to other developers of games.
“Look, I spoke to some people at Microsoft, and as I said, I can’t point to a single feature in Vista that I care about that solves problems for us at all. And I had the same conversation with the Xbox 360 guys. It’s like, Xbox 360 doesn’t make my life any better, and in fact, it makes it a lot worse, as you’re telling me I can’t count on having a hard drive.”
Basically this is a severe hit to Microsoft especially when there original plan was to make the 360 easier to develop on, but like Gabe says the removal of the HDD is basically Microsoft punching itself before there off and running. Fact is the harder it is to develop and the less dependency on the HDD will mean game creators will have to rely more on the Disc technology and maybe have to downgrade there games so average consumers can play them.
On one other note, Gabe was a former employee of Microsoft so all this coming from him really says a lot about how he feels about Microsoft. Though, as a result to all of this we might not be able to expect to many Valve titles being ported to the 360 aside from the Half-Life 2 that was already announced on the Xbox 1.
