Alongside the revealing that Portal 2 itself will be on the PS3, the folks at Valve gave us some other great news. The developer pledged their support for Sony's home console, something which they never previously would have done as they seemed reluctant to be involved with the PlayStation whatsoever. What this pretty much means is that, Steam is coming to the PS3!

The PlayStation 3 is an incredibly versatile machine that leaves room open for some slight hardware customization. It's a better multimedia utility than the Xbox360 and gives developers a little bit more of an edge with more openings for freedom. Now, I speculate that this was pre-arranged and not as spontaneous as we think. Valve probably realized the potential of working on the PS3 a long time ago, and Sony needed a big announcement during their press conference of which they were severely lacking (more Move stuff..).

Now, the best part of this deal as I said was Steam. In many ways this is bigger news than any single game release is or ever could be. Steam is the medium of choice for PC gamers as it offers a single stop to DRM, digital downloads, patching, and multiplayer, making the application extremely attractive in the eyes of publishers. Steam is already dominant in the PC market due to close work with other third parties, and Valve is at the centre of it. With millions of PlayStation 3's out there, there remains room for much more expansion.

Any possible Portal 2 DLC may be a lot cheaper, if not free on PlayStation. Valve gives away it's DLC free of charge over Steam and are only referred to as "updates".

I'd expect more downloads from Steam offered in tandemn with PSN. It can potentially be a lower cost way of of putting out more back catalogue through digital download. There's no reason we couldn't see the releases of Left 4 Dead and the first couple of Half Life games. Imagine playing those in glorious HD through your PS3.

Valve puts out free user developed mods through Steam, which we've already seen a bit on in the PS3 with Unreal Tournament, so look forward to Steam-enabled games on the home system to follow.

I'm not expecting Steam to cancel out PSN altogether, but it will sure enhance the console.