It’s no secret that Valve has its qualms about developing for the PS3. Valve’s managing director Gabe Newell has been taking swipes at the PS3 for years by going so far as to say the console is a total disaster. Earlier this year Valve developer Tom Leonard expressed his opinion to Loot Ninja on how the PS3’s architecture is too much of a hassle to figure out.

Valve’s non existent relationship with the PS3 not only upset legions of gamers, but also the president of Gearbox Software Randy Pitchford who questions Valve. In an interview with OPM (discovered by Analog Hype) Pitchford voiced his concerns over Valve’s stance on PS3 development.

Here are a few excerpts from the interview:

“I noticed something on the net not too long ago. Doug Lombardi (Valve’s VP Marketing) had to take a swipe at the PS3 again, and I thought it was foolish. I read it the same way I read fanboys. Like there’s a guy who brought the Sony platform and he’s a Sony guy, so he decides he’s going to spend a certain percentage of his time bashing Microsoft. And there’s a guy on Microsoft doing the same thing. Those guys are childish and narrow minded, It’s the same kind of thing.”

Pitchford then went on to address Lombardi’s comments about the PS3 port of the Orange Box. He also gives his opinion on how he as a game developer interprets Valve’s actions from a financial point of view.

“I’m actually kind of mad at Doug because with the Orange Box, he said the 360 and PC versions are the good ones and the PS3 version is like the stepchild because some other developer made it. Well you Valve don’t really think that, because look what you’ve done on the PC side. You’ve supported that, you’ve added all this content to Team Fortress 2, and you’ve left us hanging. It’s hard to accept that genuinely, because I know the business, I know you guys make half the money on the PS3 version because you’ve got other fingers in the pie, and other developers getting a cut. It benefits you if nobody buys that, and only buys the PC version, because you make the most money. There’s this underlying sleaziness. You know what, I thought the performance was a little slower on the PS3, but it Looked better. The colors were nicer, I thought the image looked better on PS3. It was a trade-off between the performance and the visuals. And I like visuals”.

Surely Pitchford’s feelings are shared by many gamers but will that ever get Valve to bite the bullet and embrace the PS3? I’d say a round-table discussion is in order.