It shouldn't really come as a surprise considering that Valve has its fingers in many other pies when you factor in that they are still busily working away on Left 4 Dead, updates to Team Fortress 2 and the thrilling episodic conclusion to the Half-Life saga with Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
But it is tradition rather than timeframe that has been cited as the reason behind the move, as the developer is keen to keep inventing revolutionary titles - because that's how they do it at Valve.
Lombardi emphasised that, "in typical Valve tradition, it won't be Portal with different colours. I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there - do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, 'Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.'"
He added, "you won't see a new Portal at retail this Christmas because of that. That's the trade off. People want more, but we don't want to give them more of the same right away because that would just be boring."
The original game was described as an 'experiment' but that experiment went down very well with many gamers who are now chomping at the bit to get their hands on more Portal. Lombardi explains that thanks to the wonderful fan response to the game, Valve is doing plenty of research and development to find out exactly what more they can add to the incredible Portal package.
Lombardi cites ambition as the key to the developer's success, explaining that "for us, that's really paid off. Half-Life 2 was the right decision, it was painful, six years and upwards of 40 million dollars to develop, but that paid off. That's our recipe."
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