Individual Orange Box games hit retail April 9

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Mar 5th 2008 7:15PM

Perhaps you've been burnt by digital distribution in the past, and now refuse to even touch the likes of Steam. Perhaps you found one or more of the games in Valve's critically acclaimed Orange Box to be lacking in a peel. Perhaps you'd like us to stop with the excruciating puns you jerks and report the news already geez.

So, have at it: Valve has confirmed to Joystiq that the individually boxed Orange Box PC games are due to hit physical shelves on April 9th. The separate SKUs, which will be available worldwide, consist of first-person puzzler Portal, caricatured multiplayer romp Team Fortress 2, and a crowbar double-whammy in the form of Half-Life 2: Episode One and Two. Valve has yet to officially announce pricing details, but retailers currently list Portal at $19.99 and the other two packages at $29.99 each. Expect more details soon.

Tags: BreakingNews, Half-Life, Half-Life-2, Half-Life2, HL2, Orange-Box, OrangeBox, PC, Portal, Steam, Team-Fortress-2, TeamFortress2, Valve

Reader Comments (65)

Why is HL2 coming out of Freeman's nose?

lol
True! Why is that?

Back to the story at hand, as I own a copy of Orange box this offer is a little to late. I do greatly enjoy OrangeBox.

i hope these come out for the 360, i'd be all over TF2

Yeah, me too.

I have Half-Life 2 for the original xbox and Portal for the laptop, but for online multiplayer I would want xbox Live and so have yet to play TF2.

You hear that VALVe, you go two 360 purchases right here!

I'd hate to sound like a fanboy here, but I've heard so many complaints about the 360 version of TF2, that I really can't imagine why you'd want to buy that version. I mean, if you don't have a computer at all, okay, but if you can play HL2 and Portal on the PC, for your own enjoyment I would completely recommend playing it on the PC instead.

The Orange Box price recently dropped to $40 for the 360 version. At least at target, where I bought my copy 2 weeks ago, for $40.

i have a mac
:(

yea i hope it comes to ps3 as well because i already own the OB for the xbox 360. ive been playing all the games for a while and TF2 to be "clan packed awesome butter". im moving to ps3 and all i need is TF2 since ive beaten the others. im gonna miss my achievements. im close to being done. :( *sigh* ill wait to get a new 360.

I suppose this is a good idea for those who already own several individual pieces of TOB (namely, Half-Life 2 and its successors). But really, those who haven't already should just drop the $50 for the whole thing -- every game in this pack is excellent and TF2 is a blast online.

Agreed. I cant finish any game I buy, I am very midcore, but I have logged about 50 hours in TF2 already. That's $1/hr of quality fun and ownage (and some being owned too, but, hey, its all good on balance).

And it's not exactly hard to find on sale either! I picked up a copy of TOB for $25 to give to a friend.

Those prices are the same as listed on steam, so its probably correct. Portal is the best 20 bucks ive spent in a while.

Honestly, I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to just buy it on Steam. It's more convenient and you can download it to any computer you own.

Out of topic:

When I was scrolling down I thought your avatar face (Is that Brock Samson?) was on the kool aid man body (deaftly avatar above).It looked both cool and funny,it would made a great combo.

Just saying.

I always opt for the box vs. Steam for three reasons:

1) You can't guarantee the longevity of Steam. If you buy the box, you not only have the manual to read at your leisure (not online), but also the installation CD's to fall back on.

2) Games that I'm really fond of I keep as a collector's item to add to my shelf.

3) Resale. It's easier to resell a complete box with CD and manual instead of just an installation key.

Absolutely. They're cheap on Steam as it is. £25 for the whole Orange Box or £10 for each game individually.

You gotta be daft to look elsewhere really. Especially since you can backup these games.

HINT to the anti-steam people: download the game off Steam then press BACK UP TO DISC. Get it? Got it? Good.

@blazur
Pretty much the only thing that a retail version of valve games do is give you a box and make you wait slightly less time for it to install. Everything else is still done on steam, so if it shuts down, your boxed copy would be just an inoperative as the online copy, and reselling it would be pointless since the key is locked to your steam account.

Ewww whats the point in releasing/buying the episodes pack before the third one comes out? Seems so incomplete.

"Perhaps you've been burnt by digital distribution in the past, and now refuse to even touch the likes of Steam. Perhaps you found one or more of the games in Valve's critically acclaimed Orange Box to be lacking in a peel."

Too bad they'll be forced to register it to Steam on bringing it home. Such a waste of time.

Well my xbox 360 version of TOB is scratched beyond recognition due overuse. I guess I will drop 20 for the Pc version of TF2.I just hope my PC can run it.

Then again I could buy the package on steam and get Garry's mod or the complete TOB and get that level editor for Portal and peggle.

No reason why you shouldn't be able too. Those games can scale back really nicely. If you have a PC that's five years old with a decent amount of memory and a good 3D card you'll be fine.

I have that but it seems I need to update the version of my graphics controller and I don't know how because there isn't an automatic upgrade option and I can't see the version of my current version anywhere so I could at least search the upgrade on google.

That's the only thing that stops me from playing my beloved PC games.

Assuming you're talking $USD, I think Team Fortress 2 will be $30.

Portal would be perfect for the Wii......

It's already perfect on the PC.

It's already perfect.

Fixed.

Sorry fellas, I must respectfully disagree. I'd rather use a remote instead of playing with a mouse all night...

You can use the wiimote on PC, so why I'm not sure why you'd want a gimped Wii version...

Dang :< Come on microsoft, I would pay 1600 ms points for a portal download.... screw your size limit. Let it be a few GB...

Why won't you die err sorry I mean why won't you buy the xbox 360 version of TOB already?

We are getting the new TF2 maps one of these days.

Because.... $60 is alot different from $20... and I could care less about TF2.

COD4 is good enough for me.

"Because.... $60 is alot different from $20... and I could care less about TF2.

COD4 is good enough for me".

ZOMG,Blasphemy!

Burn the witch!

No seriously TF2 multiplayer mode beats COD4 by miles, Do yourself a favor and play it and unless you have already play HL2 and all its episodes you are missing a great game.

The Orange Box is $40 at Target. I bought it just the other day. It wasn't a sale price, either.

I like the puns. The only thing I don't like to read is the obligatory sentence (is it in the Joystiq style guide?) saying 'Sorry for the puns' following any puns you guys write.

Let the phreaky pun flag fly and stand by it!

i saw what you did there

Does this mean The Orange Box is going to do a vanishing act? Should I be picking it up while I still can?

You don't have it? YES. BUY IT NOW. NOW. Why are you not buying it yet?

Orange box is the best $50 you could ever spend if you like FPS pc games. I'd pay $50 for TF2 alone (and I'm a pretty cheap dude!) :D

Separate packs coming to 360?
I'd buy portal on its own as thats all im interested in (even though I wish my laptop could handle it ;_; would make it so much kooler)

For the pun, scalded would have been better than burned, for steam... but keep on punnin'

Jesus, what a ripoff. $30 for what will essentially be a few CDs or a DVD in a slimline case with a piece of paper that has your registration code?

Hell, when I bought Orange Box I was expecting a MANUAL. All I got was a piece of paper and two discs.

Remember when games used to include real manuals? I do.

Games usually have in-game tutorials or pop-up tips now though.

No. You're absolutely right.

Valve clearly doesn't care about the physical distribution of their games, and seems to only allow it begrudgingly. EA, then, doesn't bother to pack any type of extras into the cases-- or to even make them look at all presentable.

This is great news!!!

Boy, am I glad I got that Black Friday deal at Best Buy last year. I got the Orange Box and Bioshock each for $25. DVD's too.

yea so did i!!! what a great deal; that actually caused me to get a new pc for the 1st time in 4 yrs :D no regrets!

The Orange Box for the PC is selling for $29 in my area and The Orange Box for 360 is $39. Somehow this doesn't seem like a smart value to me.

I still wish there had been a TF2/Portal pack. Half-life still doesn't do it for me.

Out of principle I will never buy orange box unless there was a discounted version without HL2, why should we pay twice for a game we bought years ago? Screw that.

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

Torchlight coming to Xbox Live Arcade with new content for House Party series

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days

Joyswag: The Lord of the Rings: War in the North-themed JRR Tolkien birthday toast kit 757 comments
Hacker GeoHot claims release of PS3 root key 197 comments
Joystiq Top 10 of 2010: Mass Effect 2 175 comments
First PS3 'custom firmware' working, doesn't allow piracy 149 comments
WRUP: Your 'Best of 2010' 140 comments

Individual Orange Box games hit retail April 9

Reader Comments (65)

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:22PM fischju said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 1:38AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:23PM ZenGaijin said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:30PM jake11 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:36PM Mal F4cti0n said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:30PM Geist said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 3:32PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 3:38PM jake11 said

Posted: May 3rd 2008 10:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:32PM Fosssil said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:45PM Korova Pamplona said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:38PM 4ham said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:32PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:37PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:04PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:38PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 9:00PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 9:22PM Spoit said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:39PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:40PM Neebs said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:46PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:09PM captcarl said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 9:59PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 2:34AM masterinsan0 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:46PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:51PM Fox318 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:58PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:53PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 5:16AM Serious Kriss said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:52PM Kaemon said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:01PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:30PM Kaemon said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:01PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 3:35PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:53PM hey buddy said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 7:54PM idiot said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:02PM nrcole said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:36PM Geist said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:06PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:13PM Premature ejaculation man said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:58PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:20PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:40PM CB said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:04PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 9:05PM Crockett said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 9:14PM FrankTheCrank said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 6:39AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 9:36PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 9:36PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:25PM aughscreennames said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Torchlight coming to Xbox Live Arcade with new content for House Party series

Featured Stories

Shatter dev Sidhe increasing focus on download space in 2011

Xbox Live Indie Gems: Cthulhu Saves the World

Vizio 'Versus' offers two-player head-to-head gaming on one screen (video inside!)

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

WoW

Massively

Big Download

Autoblog

Urlesque

Games.com Blog

UGO.com

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days