45 articlesDespite Borderlands 4 being the most successful in the series in terms of launch month performance, with more than 2.5 million copies sold in less than two weeks, it didn’t sell as much as expected.
According to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, Borderlands 4’s sales were “softer” than expected. And for him, the game’s troublesome performance on PC is the main culprit.
In an interview with The Game Business, which mainly covered GTA 6’s yet another delay, he revealed that while Take-Two was happy, the game failed to meet the publisher’s expectations.
“The critical acclaim [for Borderlands 4] was superb, and we’re really happy with the release,” said Zelnick. “Equally, as you know, there were some challenges with the Steam release. So, in terms of units sold out of the gate, the numbers were a little softer than we would have liked.”
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However, if we are to compare it with Borderlands 3, Zelnick’s statement starts to make sense. After all, the game managed to sell over 5 million copies in just less than 5 days.
Take-Two CEO Blames PC Performance for the Game’s Softer Sales
As you might have recalled, when Borderlands 4 launched on PC, players criticized its poor performance.
Gearbox head Randy Pitchford responded by saying that the PC release was “pretty darn optimal” and the performance issues only affected a small percentage of players.
He then went on a tirade on Twitter, going back and forth against players who were complaining about performance issues every now and then.
Zelnick put the blame on the game’s smaller sales numbers on the game’s poor performance on PC.
Even players who have powerful systems that met, even exceeded, its high recommended specs were experiencing major performance issues.
At the same time, Pitchford’s rants and harsh responses only added fuel to the fire, possibly preventing other players from even buying the game in the first place. Some even decided to refund it on Steam, with Pitchford even encouraging them to do so.
Regardless, Zelnick still hopes that Gearbox will be able to fix the performance issues with future patches and optimizations.
