According to Gabe Newell of Valve, the Xbox Live rules are "such a train wreck" because of how difficult it is to update the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2, and that the rules would have to be changed eventually.
Speaking as someone who has the PC version of Team Fortress 2, I'm quite happy with the mountains of free stuff provided. Owners of the 360 version, on the other hand, may reasonably feel like second-class citizens, as it will. Newell, along with Erik Johnson and Doug Lombardi say that the problem is Microsoft's strict rules about how games can be updated over Xbox Live. Newell thought the rules would change because the rules were so complicated.
"We thought that there would be something that would emerge, because we figured it was sort of untenable," Newell explained. "'Oh yeah, we understand that these are the rules now, but it's such a train wreck that something will have to change'."
"The lack of updates on the 360 for TF2 is... a total failure," Johnson said. It's particularly troubling for Valve, he added, "Because it got all the way through to customers. It's like a bug. If you fix a bug before it ever ships, it's pretty cheap. If you ship it and then fix it, it's really expensive. Those ones are really bad."
The PS3, on the other hand, has received considerable praise from Newell. "We're really happy with the current situation with the PS3," he said. "We're solving it now in a way that is going to work for our customers, rather than assuming something is going to emerge later that will allow us to fix this."
Given Valve's position within the online video game community, it's an interesting take on the current console wars, especially since I don't see a clear winner in the 360 versus PS3 online debate myself.
