Carmack Sez: Xbox 360 Primary id Software Platform

[Evil Avatar]

Next Generation Online has culled a few John Carmack quotes (http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2164&Itemid=2) from PC Gamer UK, including word that the Xbox 360 is going to be their primary development platform.

"The Xbox 360 will probably will be id's primary development platform. As it is right now, we would get the game up on the 360. When I would do major hack-and-slash architectural changes it was back on the PC, but it’s looking like the Xbox 360 will be our target. All of our tools are on the PC, and we’re maintaining the game running on the PC, but probably all of our gameplay development and testing will be done on the Xbox 360. It’s a really sweet development system."

[alienchild]

At first this pissed me off, thinking about even more console-style FPS games. Then I remembered Doom 3 and decided I didn't care...

What I am interested in however is to see how Carmack can take advantage off the fact that he only have one hardware setup to worry about.

[XxSATANxX]

Also today John Romero has announced he's working on a "secret" MMO with a major game company.

id lost me with DOOM 3. They have jumped back to an average house for me. We'll see what the next game is and if we care.

[bapenguin]

Does this mean no more id Engines? :(

[alienchild]

[QUOTE=XxSATANxX]Also today John Romero has announced he's working on a "secret" MMO with a major game company.QUOTE]

wow, John Romero isn't exactly the guy you'd think about developing a MMO, because gamers looking for new MMOs normally want a stable development house whom they know can carry the game for more than 4 months after its release :p

[dotbomb]

Monolith is all that matters these days imo and they still develop for the PC where aiming with a mouse is king.

The days of id are done. More so done for me personally if they think I'll aim a pixel representation of a gun with an analog stick.

[Citizen Philip]

A boon to the 360 community: The Trojan Horse! I mean...John Carmack!

[Dr Quincy]

Does this mean no more id Engines? :(

It's Unreal 3 from here on in, kid.

[Jart]

Can you guys even read?
The engine is built on the pc, development is on the pc, it is the *gameplay development and testing* that will be done on the console. Meaning it is still a pc game, but they are making the 360 version as the primary target. Same as CoD 360/PC, Q4 360/PC, etc. No surprises here.

[EGO]

I'm not sure if Q4 was primarily a 360 title. If it were, it would run better!

As for ID, I really don't care about their games, never really did, with the exception of Quake and Q3A. It is...ahem "was" all about the engine with them. Now, there's better engines and much better games.

[Doctor Setebos]

Also today John Romero has announced he's working on a "secret" MMO with a major game company.Pure speculation: wonder if it's the ill-fated Twilight War? That was supposed to be an aggressive effort to combine MMOs with FPSs, so Carmack might be a nice fit for that project. Just need to find out who picked up the broken shards of the game once Smiling Gator tanked...

[Hellstorm]

10 years ago this would have been big news. Now it's about as exciting as EA announcing a new Madden each year.

[drakkarim]

Finally!!

Now I won't have to hear as much about the piles of crap he releases for the PC.

[Mr.Green]

You PC snobs are full of it.

[Tia]

Also today John Romero has announced he's working on a "secret" MMO with a major game company.


Will he make me his bitch?

[Cool AN]

Because we all know what great games ID have made lately, Doom 3 and ummmm, Quake 4 but it isn't made by them. So that is what, a very dark very old school shooter (Doom 3) and a pretty good single player game but to laggy mutiplayer (Quake 4).

Yeah, at this point Carmack is pretty much big words and a truck load of money from Microsoft.

Edit: Oh and Doom 3 Resurrection but that isn't made by ID either.

[Zurik]

You PC snobs are full of it.

Full of it, yes, but you gotta admit Carmack has been slipping lately. I was tired of console to pc ports back when the xbox was doing them, and now it seems like that won't slow down. That's what is killing the pc for games.

[BabyJesus]

Because we all know what great games ID have made lately, Doom 3 and ummmm, Quake 4 but it isn't made by them. So that is what, a very dark very old school shooter and a pretty good single player game but to laggy mutiplayer.

Yeah, at this point Carmack is pretty much big words and a truck load of money from Microsoft.

Comon, Doom3 wasn't all bad, and Q4 is good IMHO, he still makes awesome engines even if they don't have the inhouse content to back engines up anymore, but id pretty much leaves it others anyway. He still makes the best online DM engines and while that might not be everyones cup of tea anymore I still love a DM game. Quake Wars looks like its going to be seriously cool.

Unreal while pretty good in its own right just never had the same feel as id's multiplayer. Quake engines always felt more natural and smoother to me.

I'm fine with hime developing for the, it just means thier games will run well on the 360.

[mos]

You PC snobs are full of it.

You'll have to clarify that statement. Are we full of it because we don't like playing FPS games on consoles with crappy controls? Are we full of it because we like our PCs, even if they aren't as good (or, at least, most of them aren't) as the current batch of consoles?

[Jart]

Piracy. That's what is killing the pc for games.

fixed your quote there ;)

[Pluvious]

R.I.P. ID.. it was a great run.. but alas you doomed yourselves.

[Cool AN]

Comon, Doom3 wasn't all bad, and Q4 is good IMHO, he still makes awesome engines even if they don't have the inhouse content to back engines up anymore, but id pretty much leaves it others anyway. He still makes the best online DM engines and while that might not be everyones cup of tea anymore I still love a DM game. Quake Wars looks like its going to be seriously cool.

Unreal while pretty good in its own right just never had the same feel as id's multiplayer. Quake engines always felt more natural and smoother to me.

I'm fine with hime developing for the, it just means thier games will run well on the 360.

Oh I enjoyed both Doom 3 (it is best with the expansion though) and Quake 4 (I like Quake 4 most of them all), however there is no denying Doom 3 isn't as good as it should have been. Add that to the fact that most of the past ID franchises are now made better by other developers then ID themself just tells what there is left of the developer that made amazing games like Quake and Doom. I still think there is hope for the franchises (Quake Wars looks awesome and is defintly on my to buy list), however I don't think ID is any where near as awesome a developer as they once were.

Carmack talks a little to much to, he makes brilliant engines but he doesn't have the games to back him up any more.

[bapenguin]

Will he make me his bitch?

It's funny, in the article that he mentions the secret MMO they ask him about his regrets in the gaming industry. He mentioned he regrets letting his PR department do the marketing on Daikatana and using the whole "make you his bitch" line. heh.

[Dr Quincy]

Because we all know what great games ID have made lately, Doom 3 and ummmm, Quake 4 but it isn't made by them.

Edit: Oh and Doom 3 Resurrection but that isn't made by ID either.

Doom RPG FTW! Will future mobile titles be produced on the 360 and all? Arf.

[Dragos]

Full of it, yes, but you gotta admit Carmack has been slipping lately. I was tired of console to pc ports back when the xbox was doing them, and now it seems like that won't slow down. That's what is killing the pc for games.


Really? I thought it was because you still have to install 4-5 CDs for every fucking game even though I'm fairly sure people who actually buy games can afford to dish out $40-50 for a DVD-rom that can stream stuff faster than anything in a damn console, it's idiotic.

[mos]

It's funny, in the article that he mentions the secret MMO they ask him about his regrets in the gaming industry. He mentioned he regrets letting his PR department do the marketing on Daikatana and using the whole "make you his bitch" line. heh.

Funny that he doesn't mention that he regrets Daikatana, itself. I mean, out of the two, that's the real stinker.

[ElectricMonk]

Full of it, yes, but you gotta admit Carmack has been slipping lately. I was tired of console to pc ports back when the xbox was doing them, and now it seems like that won't slow down. That's what is killing the pc for games.

carmack is slipping lately? jesus, pull your head out of your ass. the doom 3 engine is just as good as any other engine he's made. just because you don't like some of id's design decisions has no bearing on the technological progress he's making personally.

and as for making the 360 be their 'primary development platform' honestly that means they'll release one game for it 4 years from now and start working on the next platform.

[Atorak]

How does Doom 3's gameplay have anything to do with Carmack, who was primarily involved in developing the engine? Funny, but I can't remember him ever talking about "monster closets" in any of his interviews...

The Doom 3 engine is one of the best-scaling engines ever made. Fact. You can play it on a piece of shit or on a super computer and it still looks good.

And if I have to hear about the Unreal Engine 3 one more time...

[Mr.Green]

You'll have to clarify that statement. Are we full of it because we don't like playing FPS games on consoles with crappy controls? Are we full of it because we like our PCs, even if they aren't as good (or, at least, most of them aren't) as the current batch of consoles?
Because now that Carmack states a preference for a console people act like they don't care about losing Id games. Just like some Nintendo fanboys did when some developers abandoned the Cube. Bitter shit from a bull.

And "crappy controls" is your opinion. Aiming is easier with a mouse but movement is a hell lot more intuitive with an anolog stick that also lets you control your speed. Firing a weapon is more satisfying with the analog triggers and vibration, and not having 95 keys to configure each time is also pretty convenient.

Edit: Keyboard/mouse vs. controller never gets old now does it? :o

[Bubby]

And "crappy controls" is your opinion. Aiming is easier with a mouse but movement is a hell lot more intuitive with an anolog stick that also lets you control your speed. Firing a weapon is more satisfying with the analog triggers and vibration, and not having 95 keys to configure each time is also pretty convenient.

Utterly ridiculous.

[Mr.Green]

Well... at least he didn't type "rediculous". There's hope!

[EGO]

Amazing how quickly people turn on each other. Before Carmack and id were your PC gaming gods, now he sucks and of course it's all Microsoft/console's fault.

I've never really thought much of their "games", but liked their engines... but man, how you guys turn. No loyalty and a world of finger-pointin and hatred... just sad. :(

[H.Bogard]

Well... at least he didn't type "rediculous". There's hope!

Betcha cant type that with a game controller :p

[saran_js]

Because now that Carmack states a preference for a console people act like they don't care about losing Id games. Just like some Nintendo fanboys did when some developers abandoned the Cube. Bitter shit from a bull.

And "crappy controls" is your opinion. Aiming is easier with a mouse but movement is a hell lot more intuitive with an anolog stick that also lets you control your speed. Firing a weapon is more satisfying with the analog triggers and vibration, and not having 95 keys to configure each time is also pretty convenient.

Edit: Keyboard/mouse vs. controller never gets old now does it? :o

First of all, id's games have been falling in terms of quality and gameplay. It's not all due to the fact that he is now MS's bitch. What games have id recently produced that was gameworthy as others put out by other unknowns or well known developers ?

And I would also like to state for the record that it is YOUR opinion that a gamepad is superior than a keyboard/mouse configuration. That is your opinion. Mine, I still like a keyboard/mouse configuration BETTER and no matter what you say, it will never change. Movement speed can also be done with the keyboard/mouse configuration. It's only due to the fact that the designers of the game do not take that fact in to consideration. As for vibration, I can always get a mouse with a vibrator, and it's that fact that I have 95 keys to work with that makes the keyboard so much better.

[Mr.Green]

Yeah I thought that I had made it pretty freaking clear that I was talking about my preferences but thanks for clearing that out.

[Schnoogs]

This was a great article...I've been a Carmack fan since I was a kid when he and id first released Wolf3D.

I tend to find Carmack to be brutally honest and unbiased. If he says things about the consoles I would find no reason to doubt him. He's such a technology purist...I don't see id being able to manipulate him in one direction or the other just for to make a buck.

He's a genius in my book...I can't wait to see Megatextures in action and I'm glad to hear he's still working on engines and hasnt given it up for other endeavours.

My 2 cents