In a recent statement issued to PC Gamer, Valve CEO Gabe Newell talked about potential competitor to Xbox Game Pass to accompany its latest hardware release, the highly-anticipated Steam Deck. During the interview, Newell also talked about helping Microsoft put PC Game Pass on Steam.
While Newell quickly denied any plans of developing a “Steam Game Pass”, Valve is more than willing to integrate PC Game Pass with Steam so subscribers are able to download their games directly through Steam’s storefront (much like how’s the case with EA Play).
“I don’t think a [Game Pass equivalent is] something that we think we need to do ourselves, building a subscription service at this time,” Newell said. “But for their customers it’s clearly a popular option, and we’d be more than happy to work with them to get that on Steam.”
Given the numerous issues that generally pop up with regards to PC versions of Game Pass games, adding access through Steam should prove to be of great help right away, thanks to Valve’s more robust infrastructure in that regard. This would also help in introducing Game Pass to Linux-based operating systems, further broadening the reaches of the service.
“We’ve talked to people there quite a bit about that topic,” Newell added. “If your customers want it, then you should figure out how to make it happen. That’s where we’re at.”
Of course, these are just very early talks at this point, and as such, fans shouldn’t expect too much out of it just yet, at least for the near future.