Carmack Says PC's Will Play Second Fiddle To Consoles

[The 1 2 P]

John Carmack says that Id Software will focus most of their future work on consoles: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/carmack-pc-now-takes-a-backseat-to-consoles-for-id-software/?biz=1. Part of it is due to piracy and part of it is due to the fact that console sales (even barring piracy) are much greater than pc sales are. But he says that Id will still bring atleast a few major franchises to pc in the future.

[j_factor]

So they'll be "more focused" on consoles, but they're still releasing their games for PC anyway. So what's the practical difference? Same-day release rather than console ports coming after-the-fact?

Id only releases like one game a year anyway.

[carlcarlson]

So they'll be "more focused" on consoles, but they're still releasing their games for PC anyway. So what's the practical difference? Same-day release rather than console ports coming after-the-fact?

Id only releases like one game a year anyway.

I guess the difference might be that the games will be made for console specifications instead of PCs. So if you've got a super high-end PC that means you'll probably be gypped because the game won't be pushing it like it might have had it been developed for the PC. The UI might also be bigger and made to navigate with a controller instead of a mouse, a la Oblivion.

This is good news for me since my PC is 6 years old.

[ProgrammingAce]

John Carmack is one of the smartest people on the planet. When he talks, the industry listens.

[Jorpho]

Do you think it's still generally true that a console game (and hence a console port) will generally use save points, whereas a game designed for the PC will let you save anywhere, anytime? That used to be one of the big complaints.

[calthaer]

This is no surprise, nor should it be. I don't really think piracy is the main reason that PC sales have declined - I think a long history of bug-ridden releases have lead to people being hesitant to waste $50 on a new release, and sales have followed suit. Compatibility is another issue. Piracy is probably fueled by both of those, in part - why would I pay money when the game might not work at all or might not work on my system?

Game demos aren't released until a few weeks after the game comes out, if at all, and they're often somewhat massive downloads - cracks and hacks are released the next day or the same day and you can use a friend's game disc.

Or you can do as I do and not even bother with any modern-era PC games and the hardware rat-race and simply focus on consoles (where you know the game will run, and only have to worry about whether it's worth your time) and classic PC games.

Carmack's no dummy; he can read the signs. They all spell bad things for his company, though, because his games lately haven't been much more than tech demos for the 3D engines they make - competent, but nowhere near the ground-breaking successes of their 1990s fare that catapulted PC gaming into the stratosphere.

[otaku]

Carmack is brilliant and he has a point here. There games lately though have been mostly tech demos but being a huge hardware geek I've enjoyed at least trying them out for awhile on various hardware. I hope they optimize their games for pcs still