Alienware PCs to come with Steam pre-installed

Alienware has today announced that it will be shipping gaming laptops with Valve's digital distribution platform, Steam, already installed on them - and a copy of Portal thrown in for free too.

Steam will now be installed on all of Alienware's Area-51 and Aurora desktops and all M17x and M15x laptops, a spokesperson from Dell said today.

While the move is good for Valve and Alienware, it's likely that Stardock's Brad Wardell will be more than a little miffed at the inclusion of a competitor's software on Dell's range of gaming PCs. Earlier this week Wardell released a report saying that Valve had cornered 70 percent of the digital market and that it was increasingly hard for rivals to fight against Steam because of the number of developers using Valve's Steamworks framework.

"Once a game requires Steamworks, it is effectively cut off from us, which limits our content," Wardell explained. "The problem is that it is not practical for us to install a game that in turn requires the installation of a competitor's store and platform in order to play it."

"With its automatic game updates, easy friend finding and the ability to play your Steam purchased games on any PC, Valve has helped simplify PC Gaming to make it more enjoyable," said Dell's Frank Azor, obviously quite chuffed with the partnership.

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