Pitchford explains next-gen no-show for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

The relative install bases of current and next-gen has been pegged as the reason for the lack of PS4 or Xbox 360 release for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

"Currently there is, between PS3 and Xbox 360, over 150m installed units worldwide – probably 170m is more realistic," the boss of the game’s co-developer Gearbox Randy Pitchford told Eurogamer. There are fewer Xbox Ones and PS4s than we sold copies of Borderlands 2.

"If you try to image the set of Borderlands players who have already upgraded, that’s not 100 per cent. But if you try to image the set of Xbox One or PS4 owners who do not have an Xbox 360 or a PS3, the difference there is so close to nil you can’t make a business rationalisation around that.

"I don’t think I would have to stretch far to suggest there’s probably a lot of demand for more Borderlands. That demand lives on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. We don’t know to what extent it’ll live on the next-gen. I imagine over time – maybe by the time we get to the third or fourth Christmas – there will be enough of an install base.

"It’s not free to build a game for next-gen. So when we decide where to spend our resources, we want to spend all of the attention we can on the game itself.”