Gabe Newell on How Microsoft Will Hasten its Own Decline

Remember when Valve's Gabe Newell said that, "I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space"? (Reported here.) Well he's expanded on this to the New York Times, and it's not good news for Microsoft.

Gabe - whose company is thought to have been close to acquisition by Electronic Arts for an estimated $1Billion - is very clear about his dislike for the idea of Microsoft attempting to emulate iTunes for games in Windows 8. He sees the Xbox-process of game certification as becoming a major bottleneck both for the consumer and for the creator.

He tells the NYT that, "We would say to Microsoft, we understand all these frustrations about the challenges to your business. But trying to copy Apple will accelerate, not slow, Microsoft’s decline."

In terms of that EA purchase, the paper reports that: "Valve has been pursued over the years by Electronic Arts, which would very likely have valued Valve at well over $1 billion had the talks progressed that far, said two people with knowledge of the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

"Although Valve’s finances are private, Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, estimates that the company could be worth around $2.5 billion today."

In case you didn't know, by the way, Valve owns Steam, which would of course be heavily hit by a Microsoft-Xbox-type game delivery process if it was delivered in a professional, not-hamfisted 'Games for Windows' kind of a way.