Inside LAN-O-THON

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

VALVe and nVIDIA Team Up

VALVe and nVIDIA are partnering up to offer an exclusive demo of Portal...

The most recent Steam Hardware Survey shows more Steam gamers play on NVIDIA GeForce hardware than any other graphics platform. In an effort to further support this popular PC gaming configuration - Steam games plus NVIDIA hardware - Valve and NVIDIA have entered into an agreement to collaborate on development, distribution, events, and more.

Effective immediately, all NVIDIA gamers may receive a free copy of PortalTM: First Slice, a special version of the award-winning new game from Valve, by visiting www.steamgames.com/nvidia1 and "Taking the Test." Steam will then auto-detect the presence of NVIDIA hardware and make Portal: First Slice available immediately, free of charge. To make it easy for all NVIDIA customers to redeem this offer, a link to the Steam offer will also be included in all NVIDIA drivers.

"More Steam gamers, including myself, play on NVIDIA hardware than any other GPU," said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve. "That's a testament to the company's long history of innovation and quality. By working together with NVIDIA to expand our development, distribution, and marketing efforts, we're increasing our ability to serve the millions of NVIDIA customers logging onto Steam and help us prepare for our next generation of content."

Throughout the coming year, the companies will also be working together to support competitive gaming events for Counter-Strike® and Team Fortress® 2 and will continue to work together to define and support the breakthrough features of tomorrow's games and graphics hardware.

"Valve's endorsement of our technology and tools is yet another example of how the world's leading gaming companies are working with NVIDIA," said Roy Taylor, vice president of content relations at NVIDIA. "Portal is the hottest new, award-winning title from Valve, and we're delighted that Valve will offer First Slice exclusively to GeForce customers."

Portal: First Slice is now available to all NVIDIA customers. For more information about the offer or to take the test, please click here.
VALVe also threw in some extras too, the exlusive deal also includes Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and the very addicting Peggle Extreme.

With the announcement of this deal, it must mean that VALVe's previous partnership with ATI has expired. ATI had been best buddies with valve since before the release of Half-Life 2.

For now it seems that VALVe's previous offer for ATI Users is still alive and kicking - which means at LAN Parties most poeple will be able to join in on playing Half-life 2 Deathmatch with out needing to buy the game.

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