Carmack Yaks

GameTrailers has a very good, straight to the point video interview with John Carmack @ QuakeCon, which can be viewed here.

As usual, he makes a lot of interesting points, the highlights being:

• PS3 is more powerful than XB360, but harder to program for
• Nintendo made the "intelligent" move w/ Wii since they are not capable of competing graphically with Sony and Microsoft
• Their next generation of products will not target DX10
• Vista offers only marginal upgrades, installations over XP will not be numerous
• Consoles now possess the graphical power and memory necessary for a game to be developed for them without making sacrifices
• Next title is an entirely new IP (first time they've done this since Quake in 1996)
• id is much more focused on consoles now than they were in the previous cycle

Overall, I have to agree with pretty much everything he said, though it is not like my opinion matters on any of this. Xbox 360 coming out a year too early will cost Microsoft the power advantage they had with Xbox, but I'm going to take a wild guess that any amount of effort required to utilize PS3's capabilities will be too much for most developers and you'll only be seeing a noticable difference in exclusive titles. I'm already prepared to be dissapointed by the likes of GTA4 if the current crop of games are anything to go by.

He is also right about Nintendo's move with Wii. I'll never fault Nintendo on their business acumen. My concern is where this leads games if developers start to take the easy way out and just make titles with current generation graphics. Why invest in any of the new consoles if this is going to happen?

The comments on Windows Vista are easily the most interesting. It seems pretty clear that there is no way in hell it is making it out by January. Forcing DX10 to be an upgrade to Vista is going to further drive a nail into the coffin of PC gaming. You can tell from what he is saying that, even in the current environment of XP being widely used everywhere, PC game sales are in the tank. World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, The Sims - if it isn't one of those, it isn't doing big numbers. The interesting part is all three of those games world well on medium range PCs. Playing Doom III engine games on anything less than a 128MB DX9 card is a lousy experience, and dissapointing considering how well previous id engines have scaled. But back to his view on Vista: he is right. There isn't going to be enough new features in this thing for people who currently have Windows XP to go out and pay $199 for an upgrade, and the numerous delays means XP patch support is going to have to last a lot longer than Windows 2000 or their corporate clients will be ultra pissed. I lost interest in Vista myself when they axed WinFS. Selling a new O/S that is using the same tired ass, constantly fragmenting file system is lousy, but they have a monopoly, so they can get away with it. Vista doesn't look to be Windows ME levels of bad, but for what will be six years between releases, the reasons to upgrade are startlingly sparse. There also seems to be a really strange set of requirements for it. Feature-wise, it looks like it should be similar to the just-annouced OSX Leapord, but Vista will not even run well on a 3.2GHz laptop I purchased last May. You need a DX9 card to get full use of the GUI. You need 2GB of RAM to get games to run at the same performance level as on XP, if they even run to begin with. How the hell is that an improvement? For all the dumb nonsense Steve Jobs spews (hey look, Time Machine is so innovative! No wait, Shadow Copy and "previous versions" have been around for years) there is a much better requirements-to-performance ratio for OSX. I'm not about to buy overpriced Apple hardware, but if OSX was officially supported for PC hardware, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

If there is an amusing parallel between Windows Vista and PlayStation 3, it is that Microsoft and Sony do not seem to know who they want to target with the product. Vista is stuck between corporate clients and home users. A new shell theme that is easily replicated on XP isn't going to do it for businesses, and requirements that exempt 70% or more of the computers out there is not going to do it for home users. Likewise, SCEI has allowed the whole of Sony Corp. to jump on their shoulders, and it is evident in the lack of focus they have with PS3. Are they taking on HD-DVD? XB360? The retail environment that cannabalizes software sales with mountains of used games? I love when a company pushes technology, and PS3 has a whole lot of crammed into the box, but they don't seem to know where they want all that technology to take them over the next few years. It would have been best if an HDD-less version was available for $399 for the people who don't care about microtransactions, buying games through digital distribution, or encouraging developers to ship unfinished and unpolished products. But the reality is that they have decided to take on a lot at once, and if it doesn't work out, there is going to be quite a bit of a fallout - for them, for third parties, and for gamers. Hmm... broken record, I know.

Back to the one thing that really mattered at QuakeCon: Quake Wars looks amazing. Unfortunately it isn't out until next year (2007 is shaping up to be a killer year like 2004, and 2006 is now looking like a barren delay fest just like 2003). This looks to be the first Doom III engine game that isn't a huge dissapointment. Doom III, Quake 4, and Prey all pretty much sucked horribly, but this title looks amazing. It will be interesting to where Carmack goes from here, especially since he has a very wise outlook on Vista's lack of improvement. id has really gotten their pants pulled down by Valve and Epic as far as engine liscenscing goes. Quake 2 and Quake 3 engine were two of the most widely used engines of all time. Meanwhile, the only game to run on Doom III that is not an id-owned I.P. is Prey. The first non-Valve I.P. to run on Source was Vampires the Masquerade, and that was out the same day as Half-Life 2. In fact, the game was done a year before that, but Troika decided not to use any of that time to polish it and consequently closed their doors shortly thereafter. But the point still stands - SiN Episodes, M&M Dark Messiah, The Ship - none of these are Valve IP's but they are all using the source engine. The number of games that used UE2 is huge, and there are already more developers using UE3 than have been using Doom 3 engine for the past three years. That is just a stunning fall for id, and it is not because they were focusing on any kind of alternative business method like Valve was. As great as the lighting engine was in Doom III, the fact that it was so narrowly focused on has led to three games that are bland, boring, and monotonous. And where is that mod community for Doom III and Quake 4?

*tumble weeds*

Fortunately, the engine will be in one killer product before it is phased out. It's just amazing that it took this long, and that id has been so thoroughly thrashed by the competition in this regard. Better luck next time, Mr. Carmack.