Steam integration with Portal 2 on PS3 is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Valve’s plans to expand Steamworks to console platforms.

While those who purchase Portal 2 on PS3 are automatically gifted with a copy of the PC equivalent, Valve programmer Jeep Barnett tells GamerZines that he’d like to offer a similar incentive for those who purchase direct on PC. Naturally, publisher restrictions for gifting console copies are standing in the way, but Valve says they’ll keep negotiating.

Additionally, Valve would like to see Steam features included within the PS3 XMB itself.

Say you buy it on PC and then you have a downloadable version for PS3. That would be beautiful and is something that I would personally like to see next. But there are a lot of other things too.

Right now you’re able to chat with your Steam friends while you’re playing Portal 2, but there’s currently no way to do that outside of the Portal 2 game. I’d like to see even more Steam features that are linked within the PS3/PSN interface itself.

But again, some of this stuff is up to the platform holders and what they’ll let us do. We’ll just keep negotiating and finding out what’s basically a big win for the customers and what drives people to enjoy all these different features. We just want to put the most we can get away with onto the platform and do it as an experiment and see if the customers like it.

While Valve has made considerable headway with its Steam integration efforts on the PS3 side, Microsoft is still playing hard to get, refraining to open up any aspect of Xbox Live to third-parties.

Valve discusses plans for the future of Steamworks on consoles [GamerZines]

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