The Steam Podcast

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This week’s podcast features the following on-air personalities:

• Bob Somers - SteamPodcast.com
• Ramzy - Steam Powered Forums
• Will Smith - SourceForts Mod Team

The following news articles were discussed on the show:

PopCap Games Come To Steam
PopCap Games has brought their collection to Steam. Games like Bejeweled, Zuma, and Chuzzle are now available for purchase and download on Steam. I think this is a big move for Steam into the arena of a content provider, not just a game distribution system. These aren’t big games, they’re casual games, so perhaps when you find Steam installed on your Grandma’s computer so that she can play Bejeweled you won’t be so surprised. (full story)

Team Fortress 2 To Be Bundled With HL2: Episode 2
Valve announced on Thursday that Team Fortress 2 and a new single player game called Portal will be bundled with Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Release is slated for the first part of next year. Interestingly, Valve is also developing Episode 2 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well… (full story)

Microsoft Releases XNA Game Studio Express (Beta)

XNA Game Studio Express enables individuals and small teams to more easily create video games using new, optimized cross-platform gaming libraries for Windows and Xbox 360. This beta release targets the development of games for Windows. The final version of XNA Game Studio Express will be available this holiday season and will enable development of games which target Windows and upon purchase of a XNA Creators Club subscription, the Xbox 360 as well.

As I understand it, the library requires Visual C# 2005 Express Edition to write your code. However it’s freely available from Microsoft.

Will this really work in terms of cross-platform development? Can I write my game in Windows and then just recompile it for the Xbox 360 without changing anything? This good be a real time saver for developers that are targeting multiple markets. (full story)

Blizzard Drops Hints About Starcraft 2
Chief Operating Officer Paul Sams told an IGN reporter at the German Games Convention that Starcraft 2 is in the works. Sams said that Starcraft is his favorite game of all time and that Blizzard will certainly continue both the Starcraft and and Diablo series. He also said that he can’t say anything yet, but Blizzard will have a “major product announcement” in 2007 and is working on 3 unannounced titles at the moment. (full story)

Free Spectator Passes To CPL
You can get a free spectator pass to CPL in Dallas, TX just by filling out a form at the CPL website. Tickets are first-come, first-served, so you better get one now if you plan on going. (full story)

For more information on the SourceForts mod discussed in this week’s episode, check out www.sourcefortsmod.com and download it for free!

The Steam Podcast was added to the iTunes Music Store today! We’ve added a link to the right hand side of the page that will take you directly to our page in the iTunes Music Store. Just go there and click the subscribe button to get all the latest episodes of the Steam Podcast delivered automatically.

I regret to inform you all that episode 2 is going to have to be delayed until next week. I’ve been called out of town this weekend, possibly without internet access, and it’s just not going to be possible to get a podcast done this weekend. However, episode 2 will without fail be released next weekend.

Look for some recent news articles and commentary to be posted here during the next few days. Even though we can’t do an audio podcast, we’ll try to keep you as up-to-date as possible. To get our latest news posts, make sure to subscribe to the feed with your favorite news reader. Feed links are on right hand side of main page.