There hasn't been a lot love for the Playstation 3 from Valve. The only appearance the developer has made on the console was through a less-than-stellar port of The Orange Box. Adding insult to injury, Valve regularly explains why they don't want to get involved with the PS3's hardware. As of yesterday, however, it seems a new page in PS3-Valve relations has been turned. Speaking with Joystiq at the Left 4 Dead 2 event in London, Doug Lombardi - Valve's VP of Marketing - had this to say:

"If you look at The Orange Box -- PC: 96 on Metacritic, 360: 96 on Metacritic, PS3 like... 84 or something. That's not even close to where we are right now with the 360 and PC and the reason is people."

Read on to find out what this means for future Valve games on Sony's console.

Where Valve had once been adamant about the technical and financial pitfalls of PS3 development, there now seems to be optimism. Lombardi expressed his enthusiasm for future PS3 titles:

"...We have to get people under our roof who are dedicated, talented PS3 guys and then all bets are off. We can take the same sort of strides and get the quality out of the box and offer the same support post-launch on that platform, as well."

In other words, once the right team has been assembled, PS3 owners can expect to receive the same Valve experience PC and Xbox 360 owners know and love.

This is good news for all, and an endeavor Valve is wasting no time in getting underway. Asked if they were currently hiring PS3 developers, Lombardi responded, "Valve is always looking to hire people. So yeah, definitely."

With all their enthusiasm, it makes you wonder what took Valve so long to come to this conclusion. Maybe it had something to do with recent forecasts of a growing Sony market-share? And Sony's presence in the Japanese market is no laughing matter. Developing for the PS3 could open the doors to consumers unfamiliar with Steam.