Carmack speaks on iPhone at QuakeCon
updated 10:55 am EDT, Fri August 1, 2008
iPhone at QuakeCon
Yesterday, Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, presented the annual keynote at QuakeCon 2008. QuakeCon is a free convention held every year in the Dallas, Texas area. It brings thousands of computer gamers from all over to world together to play with friends on a giant gaming network, see the latest technology and compete in a world-class tournament. This year id Software had a couple of new and exciting things to announce, one of them being id Software's plans for the iPhone. John Carmack, technical director and co-founder of id Software, and prodigy developer, spoke very highly of the iPhone and its capabilities and spoke of his disappointment to not having any products out for the iPhone yet. To this he announced that currently id Software is in development of two different games for the iPhone. One being a conventional RPG style game, the other working towards maxing out the iPhones graphics capabilities.
Carmack believes that the iPhone is more powerful than the DS and PSP put together, and is about equivalent to a Dreamcast in terms of graphics. He even went as far to say that the graphics come close to what is capable on the PS2 or Xbox.
Carmack also gave praise to the iPhone SDK and Apples marketing support but believes that Apple still doesn't fully get games yet, but believes they have people in the company that are trying. He also noted his excitement to see that 8 out of the top 10 apps in the app store right now are games. Carmack hopes are that the iPhones success and advancements will scare other providers into offering equally good hardware.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2000
Nice jab...
"Carmack hopes are that the iPhones success and advancements will scare other providers into offering equally good hardware."
As has happened with gaming on computers, Apple's "resistance" to helping the gaming industry leaves them no choice but to find greener pastures elsewhere. Hopefully this will change quickly on the iPhone (and, if we're really lucky, trickle up to the Mac platform) before the window of opportunity closes. Like it or not (and I am one who always says "consoles are for gaming, computers are for doing REAL stuff"), gaming has an impact on both platform acceptance and overall developer adoption. How many times have we said "but you can get business productivity software X or it's equivalent on the Mac," but then had to remain silent when someone says "but what about games?"