Gabe Newell squashes rumors of Valve being acquired by Microsoft

We earlier reported on speculations about Microsoft looking at a possible acquisition of a large game publisher to spruce up its Xbox-exclusive game portfolio. The report mentioned about Valve being one of the possible considerations apart from Electronic Arts and PUBG Corp. While those reports could very well be just speculations, Valve CEO, Gabe Newell, has responded to an email query and said that he is not aware of any such plans of selling out to Microsoft.

This comes as a relief to many Steam users who feel that Microsoft buying Valve's game distribution service might hamper PC gaming. The reasons in favor of that argument are the currently not-so-well organized Xbox and Windows Stores, the still limited capabilities of UWP games etc. Also, Newell — a former Microsoft employee himself — is known to push for a Linux-based Steam OS and has gone so far in calling Windows 8 "a catastrophe for PCs". 

On the other hand, there are those who still feel that buying Valve could actually turn out to be profitable for Microsoft. Valve's gaming IP has been largely underutilized and Microsoft could pump in enough resources to bring titles such as Half-Life 3 (no, it's not confirmed) and Portal 3 as Windows 10 and Xbox One exclusives. 

Newell's answer might rest rumors of Valve going Microsoft's way for now but there are many other studios in the offing. Electronic Arts (EA) is still looking to be a plumb purchase given the number of franchises and gaming IP it has. We haven't heard anything from EA in this regard yet. No matter which studio Microsoft throws cash at, it is important that the number of Xbox exclusives increase if Microsoft ever hopes to permanently dethrone Sony's domination in the console world.

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