E3: Carmack sees long future for next-gen consoles
id Software's John Carmack sees a long future for the next gen of consoles, as well as the cloud.
Speaking to CVG, Carmack said that he thought cloud gaming would play a big part in the future of the industry too, though he didn't want to speculate too strongly.
“Console gaming might morph,” he explained. “You can certainly see cloud gaming being built into every display device and traditional consoles could become more like the audiophile niche of people who want the extreme experience there.”
Carmack has also been demonstrating a head-mounted virtual reality display at the show too, which caused him to reflect on the balance of advantages and problems with PCs and consoles.
“In many ways this would have been easier to do on consoles,” Carmack said, "but unfortunately you can’t just plug a USB device into a console and have it work; you have to have it certified and go through a whole process."
"That’s a little bit of a shame because even though the PC is ten times more powerful sometimes getting something done at the exact right point is easier on the consoles – it’s a place where you know what scanline you’re on at any point, and so on.”
Let us know your thoughts in the forum.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyAudiophiles cannot be compaired to gamers hanging on to an ageing console, sorry John but thats the biggest bs statement I've ever read. An audiophile would actually be someone like many of the folk here at BT that tailor a bespoke device that they've spent many hours and lots of money on.
Consoles = extreme experience? I think not.
John should stick to what he does best... building rocket motors and control systems for his rocket projects.
You cannot compare consoles and PCs spec for spec. Consoles may come out with what you would consider last gen hardware in the PC world, but that fact that the hardware does not change gives the game maker the ability to squeeze the most out of that hardware as they can, something they can never do on a PC. Build a PC with similar specs to the 360 and you wouldn't be able to run any kind of current game on it (the 512mb of RAM alone would limit you to 10yr old games). So please stop making this comparison.
Also if you prefer a mouse and keyboard, there are lots of FPS games on the PS3 that support them. A feature I wish MS would allow for on the 360 (you can but a $100 device to allow it, but that's too much for me).
A console merely sporting "last" gen hardware would be most impressive I'm sure!
I know :( Doesn't stop me hoping though.
Rubbish. Carmack has only ever been really involved in the technology behind the games, never the games themselves. What he does is create cutting edge gaming tech, and he's still doing that far beyond any other single person today.
I won't deny that id software hasn't made a truly good game since Quake 3, but don't confuse the company as a whole and Carmack.
I don't want a console and I don't care how much game developers squeeze every last drop of performance out of it. Xbox 360 games looked pretty ugly to me even when the console was new. Every time I walked into a shop and saw one, I would remark how large the pixels were and how it would have been nice if they had given it AA.
For a start, he's not talking about the current consoles but the ones yet to be released. I think it's almost beyond question that whatever specification they end up, they will be exponentially more powerful than the current lot. And, seeing as the current gen have been with us 6&7 years respectively, (and still going) it's probably not too hard to predict the next gen will have a long shelf-life either.
Also, he's not comparing consoles to PC's, but rather consoles vs what will become the new mainstream - the gaming medium which will replace consoles as the mainstream - cloud computing.
In the coming years more and more 'standard' people will be playing their games directly via their TV's or tablets - without buying any specialist gaming hardware at all, (except maybe a controller & a very low-cost interface) all the heavy computing will be done remotely. I think it's in that context he's saying that consoles will become niche 'audiophile' type products - with it only being the more hardcore gamers still willing to shell out hundreds of pounds for the more powerful (than cloud computing) consoles.
In that sense consoles would be niche - PC's would simply be Über niche in comparison.
That's how I understood it anyway...
Actually though, he's right,
The next gen consoles will have a long life, not because of how good they will be, but because it will probably be some of, if not the last dedicated gaming consoles. They will become a niche and relegated to the back shelf just like pc's have.
It's not hard to see that mainstream gaming has shifted towards mobile games, $600 (game and console) buys a heck of a lot in Itunes and the Play store.
That's exactly what he's saying. Sadly most people here just got hung up on console bashing and didn't really understand what he was talking about.
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Yes, exactly how I read it.
Good points of discussion here, the console as we see it today has to evolve - I think extreme gaming experiences such as the graphical content on the PC we see today, to run this from the cloud would require some serious hardware and network connections 10x faster (maybe more) than the 100mbps we have today.... for each and every user that connects.
Regardless though, the added benefit for developers of chargeable DLC (on the PC we would just call them patches and they are free mostly) on consoles makes them the single most important revenue stream for many now.
Long live the PC, the only thing keeping console and cloud based money grabbing so and so's from milking the 'haves' of every penny and denying the 'have nots' from being able to afford it.
Imho I'd compare High end PC's to the audiophile market, consoles would be like the iPod range for the mass market and cloud gaming would be more like to Utube, which even at 'hd' quality is not always as smooth and highly compressed.