Though we suppose nothing is ever truly set in stone, when Valve VP Doug Lombardi has a hunch about a company decision — and president Gabe Newell speaks as if that decision had already been made — chances are good that their forecast will prove accurate. What am I referring to? Merely the news that as far as the big wigs at Valve are concerned, the Xbox 360 is slated to receive the exact same Team Fortress 2 content PC owners are now enjoying, up to and including the Heavy update, by the end of the year, for the price of $10.
In an recent interview with 1UP, Gabe Newell began discussion of TF2 console updates by restating his well-known desire for Valve’s DLC content to remain free — but afterwards, went into detail about the difficulties in making that happen
Just the way the console updates are structured — they really want you to charge for them. In order for us to charge for the 360 update, we’d really like to have a lot more content there to justify the $9.95 price. What we want to do is do the same thing as we do on the PC — release it for free and release it every four to six weeks. If we can’t do that, then we want to aggregate enough of it so when we have to charge people, we don’t feel bad about what they’re getting there. We’re pretty close in having a pretty compelling set of content for the 360 users.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a price — $9.95. What will we get for $9.95?
1UP: The Heavy is out, so do you think that you’ll wait for one more character update?
GN: I don’t know. [To Doug Lombardi] What’s the plan?
Doug Lombardi: I think we’re going to start preparing everything that’s been done to date and release that. My hunch is that it’s going to be everything that’s out as of now, including the Heavy — and that’ll be out before the end of the year.
GN: It’ll be $9.95, right?
DL: Looks like it, yeah.
At this point in the conversation, it’s clear that at least a preliminary plan is in the works; it’s likely that the updates will cost money; and that amount is $9.95. But several paragraphs later, Newell cinches it:
GN: One of the reasons you have to charge for the update is so that you can have more Achievements. That’s one of the several ways that Microsoft pushes you. Since we’re charging for the update, we can add the same set of Achievements that have been added on the PC side.
While some will still undoubtedly squirm at the idea of paying for something PC players get for free, just think — PS3 owners aren’t getting these upgrades at all. And hey, how many other games will allow you to build your Gamerscore just by eating sandwiches?
Read the full interview at 1UP.
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