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Carmack: "It's not like the Playstation 3 is a piece of junk or anything.."

gamasutra.com — Carmack says that id will develop for both, but thinks the Xbox 360 is a superior platform and that Sony has made some bad choices.

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  • Segitz, on 10/12/2007, -378/+8As I always said, Carmack is a lazy bastard.

    Not willing to progress to multi chip/core design and whatnot
    • dukeeeey, on 10/12/2007, -7/+146Carmack has only written some of the most successful games/game engines of all time. He helps drive hardware technology ..

    • theblooms, on 10/12/2007, -14/+142John Carmack is nearly single handedly responsible for the 3D environment in the home. A little DOS game he made a couple of years ago called "Quake." Maybe you have heard of it before?

      Before Quake and the 3DFX Voodoo accelerating it, 3D in the home was unheard of. And if Carmack is so damn lazy about embracing new designs, why the hell did he bother programing GLQuake with MiniGL and Glide drivers? The Voodoo (as well as the vastly inferior Rendition and Virge based video cards) was in so few machines at the time, that could have been considered "a waste of time." But he saw the future and embraced it. Hell he even wrote VQuake just for those running the Rendition cards.

      Segitz, you are either ignorant of id Software's, and by default John Carmack's history, or you're a moron.

    • hadiz, on 10/12/2007, -34/+66theblooms: You mean Wolfenstein 3D/Doom, both of which preceded the Quake series.
    • JimmyJJWalker, on 10/12/2007, -61/+14I remember back when ID wrote good games, those were the days...
    • OverloadUT, on 10/12/2007, -7/+78hadiz: No he doesn't. Those games were not 3d, but Quake was. There's a huge difference in technology between Doom and Quake.
    • grevvvvvv, on 10/12/2007, -4/+51It's not possible to digg you down as far as you deserve.
    • killinger777, on 10/12/2007, -3/+63You fool, Xbox 360 has a triple-core CPU.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Central_processing_unit
    • ImTheDarkcyde, on 10/12/2007, -47/+6yeah, and Sid Meyer single handedly makes his games too, right?

      you guys are giving John wayyyyy too much credit, wolf/doom, sure, he did a lot of engine coding there, but now he's just a lead
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -39/+10There were many 3D games before Quake. Marathon (Bungie) was true 3D before Quake came out, for example.

      And there were a lot more.

      John's a smart guy, but it is possible to give him more credit than he deserves.
    • addisonj, on 10/12/2007, -1/+35sorry HappyScrappy, Marathon once again fits into the same type of "3d" category as Doom and wolfenstein, the quake engine was the first "true" 3d engine to be used in a game, marathon was similiar to doom in that it used 2d sprites and effects overlayed on a "3d" game world, Quake was the first engine used in a game that rendered 3d models and light and effects, though they didn't look that awesome, it was fundamentally different than the rest. I am not calling Carmack a god or anything, i think in the gameplay department there are much better developers, but carmack deserves to be recognized as an amazing programmer and knows what he is talking about, and its no surprise that the ps3 is harder to develop for, 8 small CPU's and 1 big CPU = difficult times, whereas 3 equal powered cores = more straightforward traditional programming
    • LowenSoDium, on 10/12/2007, -12/+0@hadiz
      "You mean Wolfenstein 3D/Doom, both of which preceded the Quake series."

      Catacomb 3d 4life!
    • vagarach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18No, he is correct. It was largely Quake running on the Voodoo cards that drove their adoption. A 'killer app' if you will. I do know that going from the reasonable and completely playable speed that Quake 1 ran at on my Pentium 133Mhz with 16MB RAM in software to Quake accelerated with a Voodoo card, with smooth textures and crazy insane speed was quite the experience for me. You could drop (what was it, $300?) on a Voodoo and people would laugh at you. Then you show them Quake, and well, the laughter stopped.
    • JettaMan, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4Carmack is also an Objectivist i.e. Ayn Rand.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -23/+13No, the reason Doom isn't 3D is because it is laid out on a 2D world. Each position on a 2D map has a height field for the floor. Thus there can be no place on the map where there is a floor at one height and another above it. In other words, the map never crosses over itself. Marathon used a portal-based system (like is the rage now for Narbacular Drop/Prey type games) so it had none of these restrictions. Note that it did skew horizontal surfaces up and down instead of tilting the camera up and down to make drawing easier. This is why the amount of up and down look was restricted. It's bad enough when your 90 degree corners turn to 75, it looks far worse beyond that.

      Additionally, Doom used a 2D control system where the mouse was turn left/right and move forward/back, and vertical aiming was taken care of automatically. Again removing Z from the gameplay. Marathon 2 (still shipped before Quake) had mouselook and required vertical aiming, using WASD to move. Even Quake didn't use mouselook when it came out, it defaulted to the Doom controls plus keys to look up and down and auto vertical aiming on. The levels reflected this, because looking up was difficult and had poor control, rarely did Z ever come into play other than to point it out to you in the 2nd room with a guy on a platform above you (that you didn't even have to shoot to get by).

      Again, Marathon had a 3D map and 3D controls (which are still used in games today). It was a 3D game, and before Quake.
    • daridave, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2STFU you n00b.

      "they just took a design decision that wasn’t the best from a development standpoint."

      Since I live 5 mins. from St Laurence street here in Montreal and pass by the Ubisoft building almost everyday, knowing people who work there, including one very close friend who has access to very high-security computer stuff in company, this is actually a sentence I've heard MANY times from those guys.

      If you're wondering why Assassin's Creed got ported, it's not about a big fat check, nope. THIS is why. PS3 was a bitch to work with a few months ago, and while it's getting "ok", it still frustrates many of the dev's I know there, because they keep saying "it could be so much more".

      And hey, didn't Phil Harri-moron-sson say the same freaking thing? Nobody will cap the power? GUESS WHY, idiot.
    • Lazybones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28@HappyScrappy

      However it still had 2D characters and if I recall 2D items.. Only the maps had 3D aspects.. This puts it in the 2.5D category with later games like DukeNukem 3D.

      Quake was full 3d, polygon characters / monsters and all.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -21/+2It totally had 2D baddies, items and the gun in your hand.

      Still, it had 3D levels, controls, the ability to move in 3-space and a gameplay that took this all into account.

      3D game.
    • killinger777, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Sorry. Marathon is not a 3d game.
      "Unlike modern first-person shooters, Marathon has a pseudo-3D engine that only creates the illusion of 3D by placing two-dimensional objects together."
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(computer_game_series)
    • Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9An engine that uses sprites isn't a true 3D engine, so while you can qualify Marathon and others as 3D games because you can technically move in 3 dimensions, it didn't utilize a 3D engine, and as such Quake is a level of complexity above them. One's definition of 3D game hardly matters.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -22/+5Marathon, unlike Doom, did use a 3D engine. It had to because it was a 3D world (unlike Dooms 2D worlds with height info). Marathon just didn't use it to render objects.

      As to Wikipedia, you know what Wikipedia is good for? Finding out things you don't know. Know what Wikipedia isn't good for? Quoting as a canonical source about qualified judgements.

      Opinions are like assholes. And in this case, I have both. When you played Marathon, there was no question it was 3D. And if you saw the tools for editing the 3D levels (like MIA), there was no question it was a 3D world. I don't care what judgement someone on Wikipedia rendered, I know a lot about it and I've made up my mind.
    • Kwipper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5IMHO! Quake was the first FULLY 3D First Person Shooter of it's time. Before, the level design was 3D but the enemies and weapons consisted of just 2D sprites. I think that is the point that (theblooms) was trying to make.
    • patm1987, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17HappyScrappy, look up raycaster

      see, in a game like doom, wolfenstein, and marathon, you split the screen into one ray for each vertical line. These rays are essentially fired out until they collide with a wall and then represent that distance and height and all that with some creative problem solving. In the end, all the data is in 2d and all the math lives in 2d space. stuff like looking up, walking up stairs/elevators, and distance are all performed by special tricks while outputting from this 2d data.

      in a game like quake, and pretty much all modern 3d games, you rasterize the level. Essentially, you represent all the objects as polygons (usually groups of triangles) and apply a bunch of crazy 3d transforms that move it to 2d space (insert linear algebra here). This process is a bit more complicated, but involves taking all the objects in a frustum in 3 space, transforming that frustum to a cube, some more neat transforms including 4space, and then it's mathematically flattened to 2space for output to your monitor. In the end, it's a different math than the raycaster above, and allows you to rotate in all directions.

      in the future, you may see raytracers used in games (to an extend, the technique is used for some fancy texture effects in modern games to simulate shadow and detail on a surface that has neither). This would be similar to a raycaster, only a line is traced from every pixel on your screen (and, to keep up with modern demands, wouldn't just go till it stops but bounce around like a real light ray). unfortunately, this is slower than raycasting and rasterization.

      note, I've only made a 2d triangle rasterizer so far, so I'm not the biggest expert on it, but others would like to verify/correct me, no? better I get it wrong here than on a test.

      again, to make my point clear, marathon only really has 2d data representation and 2d mathematics (for rendering, the game may be all fun and good in 3d-ish gameplay), so it's not a fully 3d game.
    • Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Carmack at E3 2005 commenting about the same thing. (i think its from 2005)

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFUw29U4J8

      He's pretty consistent, although now its unsure if the PS3 will have that 'dominant market share' he was talking about.
    • Charlotte_Web, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8MORE IMPORTANTLY in the article, Carmack said in the article that id is returning to developing for Nintendo systems, beginning with the DS.

      That's great news!
    • neko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5wait a minute wait a minute... aren't we forgetting Ultima Underworld and System Shock?
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -11/+7You have no idea what raycasting is. Oni uses raycasting for visibility, and it's a 3D game.

      Yes, the objects get rendered to 2D, because the screen is 2D. This is the case with all 3D graphics. Even if you render stereo output, it's just two 2D images. However, unlike Doom, the data in Marathon is not 2D data, the levels are laid out in full 3D.

      Wolfenstein 3D didn't even have height. It also took advantage of the fact that with the walls projecting equally above and below the eye, you only have to render the top half or bottom half of the screen. Bungie's "Pathways Into Darkness" used these tricks also.

      Raytracing is only one method of rendering a 3D space/model. It's very slow and produces inferior results in many cases (esp. in the case of antialiasing) to scanline rendering. Which is why most everything is scanline rendering. Raytracing is easy to understand, which is why it is taught first. Do not make the assumption that everything will be going to raytracing as computers get faster. People were talking about that at Siggraph '89, and they're still talking about it.

      There's no crime in taking shortcuts. "Real 3d" rendering hardware like video cards take tons of shortcuts. It doesn't mean something isn't 3D.
    • Malakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@theblooms Carmack himself didn't write VQuake--Michael Abrash did.
      It was well known at the time that Michael Abrash wrote VQuake. He talked quite a bit about it in one of his "Ramblings in Real Time" articles.
      "Since then, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time working on the port of Quake to Rendition’s Verite 3-D accelerator chip"
      http://www.bluesnews.com/abrash/chap69.shtml

      Ramblings in Real Time is interesting stuff for anyone still interested in software game rendering.
      http://www.bluesnews.com/abrash/
    • EvolvedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1With all the bickering on if Doom or Quake was the first 3d, it is amusing that neither was. The first 3d game I played was when I purchased stereovision equipment for my pc that worked with any directx enabled games. I loaded up Tomb Raider and seen her in all her glory in true 3d.
    • staticneuron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6
      Time magazine, Monday, Oct. 30, 2000

      Part of the reason for the underwhelming array of games, gamemakers say, is that PS2 is hard to program for. "The PS2 is definitely more powerful than Dreamcast," says John Carmack, the multimillionaire, ponytailed master gamer behind legendary shooters like Doom and Quake. "But it's less convenient to extract performance from it."
      "The PlayStation2 doesn't live up to Sony's hype," says Carmack. "It's just a next-generation machine, and they were acting like they'd invented the steam engine."

      I am curious... I haven't seen of any articles about japanese devs complaining about how hard the PS2 was to develop for I have only heard them refer to it as a challenge. So now the PS3 supports entirely open API's so I would assume it is less of a hassle than the PS2. Overshadowed by superior MS tools but I don't think it is as bad as certian venues of media make it seem.
    • WildKard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Mandatory Reading for anyone who wants to talk about John Carmack's contributions to gaming:

      http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/by_title/developerId,682
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack
    • MacHarborGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Marathon was not a true 3d engine with true 3d maps. Marathon's maps were built much like doom's, using an overhead editor to make the world via polygons that defined the floor, and height data for those polygons to create a ceiling. Here is an except from...

      http://www.marathon.org/hyperarchive/Files/editors/marathon.engine.faq.0.6.txt


      -- Polygons: Our 8-Sided Friends

      Marathon's basic "building block" is the polygon. Every map is made up
      of dozens and dozens (sometimes hundreds) of polygons connected
      together to make hallways, rooms, etc.

      Because of the way Marathon's engine operates, a Map is designed in 2D.
      You cannot "model" a three-dimensional room by creating a 3D cube and
      sticking other 3D cubes onto it, as you would in a 3D program like
      InfiniD or Ray Dream Designer. Instead, you create polygons outlining a
      room's boundaries, or walls. You then tell Marathon the height of the
      floor, and the height of the ceiling. You link these polygons together,
      creating pseudo-3D structures by changing the floor and ceiling
      heights.

      Ledges are simply polygons whose FLOOR heights are higher than the rest
      of the room. Staircases are simply hallways whose floor heights go up
      or down... Platforms and doors are "special cases" -- regular old
      polygons whose ceiling heights and floor heights can change
      dynamically. A door, for example, is just another 2D polygon in a map,
      connecting two larger rooms. But when you're playing the game, walk up,
      and hit the action key, its ceiling height changes and it appears to
      slide upward, allowing you to pass.


      -- Pseudo-3D: Smoke and Mirrors

      "But wait," you cry! "That sounds like the way DOOM does things! I
      thought Marathon's engine was superior to DOOM's, able to do 'real' 3D
      maps!" You're right, partially. Marathon IS capable of creating maps
      with rooms on top of one another. But it's all smoke and mirrors --
      understanding that is the KEY to understanding map creation.

      Picture a flat map, with no elevation changes. It's shaped like a big "U".
      -- insert picture here --
      If you twist one side of the "U" around, so that it overlaps the other
      side, you will have two polygons that occupy the VERY same space in the
      "world."
      -- insert picture here --
      However, when you open that map in Marathon, you won't SEE the second
      hallway when you're in the first one. They are two separate "rooms,"
      even though they occupy the same space in Marathon's "universe."

      What happens when you change the ELEVATION of one of those rooms,
      though? Suddenly, you have two rooms that are on TOP of each other as
      far as you, the player are concerned. Although the actual map defines
      them as 2D spaces that overlap, the Marathon engine turns them into 3D
      rooms on different "floors" of a structure.


      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Back to me

      Quake, on the otherhand, was the first (as far as Doom and Marathon are conserned) truly 3D world because creating maps for it was the same as using a 3D modeler, you would create cubes, spheres (or something that resembled a sphere), and other shapes to create the world. You could have bridges that you could both walk on top of and under, something that both Doom and Marathon were uncabable of doing, hence they were not true 3D engines.
  • brendonauger306, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24dude are you blind, if you anything about the spu cores that are currently in the ps2, you would see the benefit from a development side of things, the xbox 360 was designed for the developers to take advantage of, maybe you should do a little research before making a statement as bold as that one... John Carmack is of course a leader in the field and i would tend to think that he would know what he's talking about when referring to the systems and their potential. I hate fanboys....
  • brendonauger306, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2sorry i correct myself, i said ps2 not ps3, i meant ps3!!!
    • Nezzari, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4You also meant SPE cores, not SPU.
    • hack314, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7SPE and SPU are pretty much used interchangeably.. no biggie.
  • Splitt3rxx, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18I bet the PS3 would make a good server.
    • jasutton, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5well, it wasn't hacked during the previous contest...of course, that's more of a test of the software running on it than the hardware itself. Now, it also survived a bout with digg/Slashdot, and all the other news sites that listed it too :)
    • toasty168, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Actually, the PS3 would make a great media center. Just not that great for games.
    • Denver80203, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18It's a fine doorstop
    • Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Yeah, seriously, who needs games when you've got a machine that can cook your dinner? I just need a program that can aribtrarily generate floating point calculations for all of the cores, and with the heat it puts out, it'll be faster than my microwave. *drools*
    • Megatog615, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Now imagine a Beowulf cluster of those things!
    • Chandon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Floating point performance is rarely useful on a server. The X-Box 360 would be better at serving web pages or running database software. As a supercomputing node to predict the weather or do protein folding, the PS3 would be way better - although I'm not sure how good the floating point accuracy is.

      On the other hand, a decent Opteron or Xeon processor would probably own either of them in price/performance for non-video game stuff.
  • aahpandasrun, on 10/12/2007, -28/+23"It's not like the Playstation 3 is a piece of junk or anything.."

    The stacks and stacks of unsold PS3s seem to disagree.
    • Overdose, on 10/12/2007, -12/+11I went into fries and saw about 50 ps3's, week later the stack was the same height. ;)
    • Dustyb, on 10/12/2007, -11/+14Yeah it's expensive but just because it doesn't have any decent software for it doesn't mean it's a junk. I own the Wii, DS and a 3 year old computer so I don't have a great grasp on what great graphics are, but I saw an PS3's graphics at Walmart and its mind blowing to me. Plus the features it comes with are pretty fantastic, Blu-Ray is probably the next video format and it comes with a player, plus a lot of interesting other things. I probably won't ever get one unless it goes under $300 but, it is most certainly not a piece.

      But don't get me wrong I bash the PS3 for the fun of it aswell, just it's really not that bad.
    • rbanffy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Do all Microsoft astroturfers really expect to win 360s, notebooks or other expensive gifts?
    • Kwipper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3LOL! I am digging you up for that. =D
    • fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11lack of demand != junk

      The PS3 is a powerful piece of hardware, regardless of how many people want one.
    • WileEPeyote, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3@FantasticFlan

      Junk = Something people don't want

      I'm not saying that the PS3 is junk because there are people buying them, but if nobody wants something it is indeed junk regardless of how powerful it is.
    • evilspoons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No, it just implies the PS3 is overpriced or missing good games, or as the case may be, both.
  • Derelict267, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Too bad there won't be a doom 4 :( at least not for a long while according to him.
    • pegisys, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I think he said that someone else would do doom 4, he also said id is not doing anymore sequels to the old games, but there partners will. so raven, splash damage and who ever else works with id closely will
  • Pix869, on 10/12/2007, -42/+6[Insert witty anti-sony quip which will result in people pressing that small green button next to my name here]



    Well, it's not like the PS3 is junk or anything..(Cough). The 360 is much better in my opinion.
  • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24He's just seems to be saying it's more difficult to use the asymmetrical architecture. I agree with him. It was a choice Sony made. With asym, if a developer writes to your hardware well, the ultimate performance can be higher. But with the 360 shared-everything model (including bandwidth), the theoretical peak performance is lowered, but it's so much more easy to develop for that a much greater percentage will be able to get a lot nearer to this lower peak. And so you might end up up with better performance in the typical case for devlopers.

    You can make arguments either way, and I don't have a problem with John's. But before fanboys want to rip all the content out of his argument and just turn it into a straight "better v. worse", Carmack doesn't even try to cook it down that simply, and perhaps others should resist the temptation also.
    • Lazybones, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Developers have said it over and over again, that most game code can not be parallelized the same way server code can. You can only sub device so many tasks to be done at once, because so many tasks are dependent on each other. There are points of diminishing returns.

      Hence why 3 standard full featured cores are better than 6-8 mini cores for most developers... They are looking to off load some physics, and AI but the rest of the code base is rather linear.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Carmack doesn't say that. And he writes games and is writing for PS3.

      What are your qualifications?

      He merely says that given that PS3 is unlikely to dominate the market, developers will not spend the kind of time required to investigate the complex PS3 architecture and optimize for it. He doens't say games can't be optimized for it (as you say).

      It'd be really great if people didn't try to take a reasonable statement by Carmack, fail to understand it and thus try to turn to mean something other than what he said.
    • rbanffy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@Lazybones,

      It all depends on what kind of game you are talking about. I know many types of games that can be heavily parallelized.

      Granted, the deeply asymmetric architecture of the PS3 is very hard to master and keeping the SPUs working full steam is sure a challenge, but the PS3 has much more processing power than the 360 and the rewards will be taken by whoever does it first.

      I am not familiar with the development tools for Cell, but I imagine it to be a nightmare when compared to the 3-way SMP of the 360. We have been doing SMP in desktops and servers for years. Cell is much more like a no-compromise supercomputer than a desktop or videogame and it is certainly harder to program.
    • muikano, on 10/12/2007, -12/+8oh please. If you were running Sony you would choose the same choices. Asyn unique hardware to make ports cost more, exclusives stay exclusive. 20gb+ discs for heavy resource games. 3 Blue Dragon Discs? Pshaw. One Blu-ray Blue Dragon Disc with room to spare.

      More content on one disc. Every console has at least 20 gigabytes of hard drive. That is so important to developers. PS3 Marketplace is going to be implemented better. No insane 50 mb limit on XNA.

      I disagree on the pricing. Gaming shouldn't cost 500 dollars. But the PS3 is better than the 360. It just is. Bigger, more varied game library. Free online service. Next gen disc playing capability built-in. A helluva lot quieter than the 360.

      The PS3 hardware decisions are far wiser than the 360.

    • shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8My buddy got one. It's pretty dang sweet actually, the graphics are truly impressive (R:FoM).

      Sony has sure made it hard to like the PS3 in theory, with this Bluray crap and the lateness and the price and the arrogance. but after playing it I kind of want one... Will I be getting one for $500? Fuuuuck no. But in 2-3 years if there's still the PS3 and it's < 300 or so, I'll pick one up, right after my iPhone (or whatever it's called then).

      Another thing we seem to be ignoring is gameses. When the 360 came out there wasn't much of a catalog. Halo, Madden, a few others. If or when PS3 has a few more really good titles, that will level the field a bit. Also remember there are millions of PS2-only people with tons of PS2 games, that in and of itself will sell a lot of consoles. I mean, RE4, San Andreas, Metal Gear, people -- that's a pretty big selling point.

      Thanks for listening. this is the first and last time I comment on the console wars.
  • toasty168, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4Ha! A well respected expert has spoken. PS3 is teh ghey!!! Unless of course you want to do some calculus or something or maybe you just want people to think you're a rich idiot.
  • ibeetle, on 10/12/2007, -19/+4It wouldn't be a day at Digg if there wasn't some inaccurate PS3 bashing *****.

    I guess the PS3 not selling will go down in the tech world just like Apple is going out of bussiness, or their computers cost twice what Windows computers cost.
    • trubbleshute, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7It's not like the person posted their own blog entry stating the one hundred and one reasons you shouldn't buy a PS3. It's Carmack saying he's banking on Xbox 360.

      Google some interviews of this guy, he is amazing-- and the stuff he has done for the gaming community is amazing as well.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Actually, where he speaks of 360's success it is in relation to Sony making decisions about PS3 that are better decisions if you dominate the market than if you share it. Sony assumed one, and now it looks like it may be the other.

      As to Carmack banking on 360, well, the Japanese don't play FPSes, and that's all John does (and rockets), so perhaps the fact that 360 seems to have already lost to the PS3 (and Wii) in Japan is of no concern to him. Other developers may need to take this into consideration though.
    • dr00, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4he's just going with popular opinion.

      i'll probably get dugg down for this, but he's had a long grudge against nintendo because of the snes days when they didn't allow massive amounts of gore and violence (and thus, he had to modify his games, some didn't make it to the console) and now all of a sudden he wants to produce games for the wii.
      in an interview last year when the 360 was about to launch, he went on a few tangents of saying the that the wii (at the time still name revolution) would have a lot of gimmicks that would end up being really stupid anyway.

      i love what he's done for gaming, and i love the wii60 and don't ever plan in the foreseeable future getting a ps3, but it's hard to take his comments without a grain of salt.
    • MaxPayne3476, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Gotta remember though HappyScrappy, the gaming population in Japan is nowhere near as large as the US IF MY memory serves me correct.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10It is not as large as the US. The gaming market is larger disproportionate to the population, but it still isn't as large as the US.

      But in the last gen, you had plenty of crossplatform games that ported to Xbox to pick up another 10-15% more sales over PS2 alone (and some even to Gamecube!), so shearing off the 25-30% of the gaming market that Japan represents is a decision not to be taken lightly.
    • shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1woops
    • salmonmoose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"he's just going with popular opinion."

      No, Carmack has been saying that development on the PS3 is a nightmare since before the 360 even came out.
  • mrnaylor, on 10/12/2007, -14/+6360 rules. PS3 sucks.end of story.
  • Splitter402, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Fools! Of course Wolfenstein 3D was 3D! It has it in the name!! By the gods, I could even count the 'pixels' in each 'sprite.' Such advanced software!
  • LordDshyzL, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5Blu-ray = Betamax!!!! Great names sony, great names
    • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9You shouldn't have fat fingered your name and spelled "LordDouche" properly.
  • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -18/+6No problem, Carmack can put his dark, poorly lit, tunnel games on the 360.
    • aragami, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17and you can have riiiiiiiddddddddggggggeeeeeeee racer! :-D
    • tendonut, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12And Rockstar can put their dark alley driving hooker shooting games on the PS3....wait a minute...
  • apescissors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Carmack is the only name in the computer games industry that I know to trust. His input is always welcome and noted as far as I'm concerned.
    • toasty168, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Yup, he always unbiased and tells it like it is and thoroughly explains his opinions.
  • toasty168, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15A well respected expert, developer who has himself inspired many other game developers has spoken. A pioneer in the field of game programming. Considered a genius by many of his fellow collegues in the gaming field. Hardware manufacturers regularly consult with him as to the direction 3D graphics should be going (nvidia). The 360 is just the overall better machine. The PS3 is not focused. It's a jack of all trades and a master of none. Sony went after a media center hoping to take over your living room. Microsoft gave you many options to create a media system but clearly focused the 360 on gaming. The vast majority of people want affordable gaming compatible with their current entertainment systems. Sony felt it's brand was strong enough that people would change their current entertainment systems to be compatible with/take advantage of the PS3. Sure, the hardcore would but the hardcore aren't the people who make or break your console. It's the plebe who still has an SD tv and probably won't be getting hd for a few years and doesn't want to spend 600 dollars on the do everything entertainment machine. They just want a game console. A ***** console that plays cool games. Not a stupid "super computer" that's really good at math.

    Sony is in a world of hurt. Anything to the contrary is more Sony ***** propoganda or unbelievable brand loyalty.
  • duketogo, on 10/12/2007, -30/+6PS3 owns, x360 sucks, end of story. Wake me up when Carmack is relevant again.
    • toasty168, on 10/12/2007, -17/+6ps3 is such a pile ***** and fanbois such as yourself are nothing more than the disgusting flies that can't eat enough of sony's ***** to save themselves.
    • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -14/+6PS3 isn't a pile of ***** - you just can't afford it. Now back to my toilet of gold.
    • slimthps, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7How is it a 'pile of *****'?
    • jebadiah, on 10/12/2007, -27/+1so this little piss ant who ***** used to work with MICROSOFT!!! is like.. yeah 360 is better. and everyone is like.. OMG!!! HES SO RIGHT!! HES A GENIUS!!! I TOTALY AGREE!!!!
      if anyone from sony was like... "the PS3 has superior power te 360" everyone would be saying "OMG WHAT A FAG!!! HE WORKS FOR SONY DONT TRUST HIM!!! THEY LIE!!!!!! PS3 SUCKS ASS!!!"

      lmao....
    • soccerboi00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14@jebadiah
      I dug down your comment before even reading because it just looked so ***** annoying.
  • knodi, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3PS3 Suck and everyone knows it even sonys stock holders.
  • flaakmonkey, on 10/12/2007, -10/+7Carmack is GOD.
  • duketogo, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2ps3 is such a pile ***** and fanbois such as yourself are nothing more than the disgusting flies that can't eat enough of sony's ***** to save themselves.

    You had sex with Master Chief.
    • shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4dude.
      1. Learn how to address a response
      2. learn how to quote a comment
      3. learn how to reply to said comment
      4. stop with the obnoxious flaming.
  • Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20jesus ***** christ. Can the fanboys on all sides just shut the hell up and stop trolling every single story which has anything to do with the wii, xbox360 or the ps3
    • iposthuman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I so agree with ya. I didn't realize it was possible but I'm so sick of it already. Totally ruining the gaming channel, nothing constructive.
    • knodi, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3Still doesn't change the fact that PS3 is crap.
    • Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@knodi and it still doesnt change the fact that silly, childish trolls such as yourself are RUINING digg, particularly any page which has any relation to the three consoles.
      It doesnt MATTER which you think is best nor does it matter what you think sucks - People will buy whatever they want to according to their own opinions and dont need a wankfest over one console to make their mind up.
  • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2D3koy: "It's not like Carmack is wrong or anything.."
  • yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Doom3 while good wasn't great and it wasn't Doom. They used the name to gain recognition but the game and the name were different.

    That said, JC knows his ***** and at very least deserves proper respect for bringing gaming to true 3d and showing both the card manufactures and game programmers that there is a viable market for it.
  • mikefitz2, on 10/12/2007, -24/+1who is carmack i never heard of him, besides i only place computer games anyway so this doesnt even matter dugg down.
    • Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Who are you? I've never heard of you. Besides, I only listen to people who actually have something to say anyway, so your opinion doesn't matter. Dugg down.

      PS: John Carmack historicly has developed mostly PC games.
    • whiteguysamurai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow...You're an idiot.
  • r3d0din, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12There's a ton of post arguing the value of John Carmack's remarks. If you like Sony more than Microsoft, or you'd prefer to spend your cash on the Playstation 3 versus an XBOX 360, that remains entirely up to you. But it's just plain ludicrous to pretend that Carmack is wrong or that there was ever a time when he hasn't been relevant to the gaming industry. The man is a genius when it comes to graphics programming. Nearly every major technological breakthrough in graphics has come from his mind. Ever heard of binary space trees? What about programming games in C++ instead of assembly? Fully polygonal 3D games? And don't get me started on mega textures. I tried not to make this a long post and I hope that it doesn't sound negative, but the man is an absolute visionary. And I don't even like games by id software.

    I've said this before on digg, and I feel the need to reiterate it here. When it comes to programming, John Carmack is GOD and his words are law.
    • DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Uhh, Carmack didn't invent BSP trees or any of those things. And it took him until Doom 3 to move to C++ from C. He's one of the best graphics programmers out there but I give much more credit to Tim Sweeney for the innovative Unreal engines.
    • Ganchula, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Hah, this post is hilarious. r3d0din knows nothing about computer graphics. Carmack didn't invent BSP trees. The idea that he somehow started a trend of programming games in C++ instead of assembly is ludicrous (in fact as DigitalDud says he has been really slow to adopt C++). How did you even come up with that one?

      His engines have performed well but the quality of the code is poor, in the sense that they are difficult and time consuming to work with. And no, they aren't difficult and time consuming because they are so advanced or something like that; they're just poorly organized.

      Saying something like "nearly every major breakthrough in graphics has come from his mind" is a huge insult to the computer graphics research community. I think Carmack himself would be annoyed by that statement.

      He has done some good things, and has made some minor innovations lately (ie Carmack's reverse, google it), but he is not the last word on anything.
    • Ganchula, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Interesting that my post, which contains only factual statements, most easily verifiable, is being dugg down. I didn't say "Carmack sucks" or anything like that (he doesn't).

      The unfortunate thing for some people who post about technical issues on digg is that on a site like this you occasionally encounter people who know what they are talking about, and then ridiculous statements are exposed.
    • r3d0din, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Okay, let me respond to my own post to clear up a few things that are incorrect in my post, but incorrect mostly due submitting my comment to quickly and not rereading it before clicking submit. I actually meant to list 'binary space partitioning' and not 'trees'. And, I believe Doom was the first game ever released using binary space partitioning. Also, as DigitalDud pointed out, he was late to adopt C++, and I should have listed 'C' instead. I've read before that when John Carmack announced he was writing Doom in C, people that C was too slow for writing games.

      And if I implied that he 'invented' all of those technologies, that wasn't my intention. I should have said something along the lines of "on the cutting edge" or "he is a pioneer in his field" but I was just saying what was on my mind. He's still a genius and he's still a great graphics programmer whose engines usually set the bar for graphics for several years. He invented surface caching and he absolutely has received credit for inventing MegaTexture. As far as 'Carmack's Reverse', he didn't invent shadow volume. But he did develop it independently and has popularized or created all of the techniques that I listed in my original post.

      I'm not a graphics programmer, just a Carmack fan.
  • Ilovebabyjesus, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Carmack is GOD!
  • brianasu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How about the Descent engine and the Ultima Underworld Engines. Descent had 6 degree or freedom and polygon enemies before quake. Utlima Underworld had 3d features like bridges and slopes all before Doom. Both were decent games.
  • owen87, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2John Carmack is one of the most respected voices in the programming community. He is responsible for many of the advances made in the development of computer games, most notably in regards to graphics and game engines. The fact of the matter is, if he says that the XBox 360 is easier to program for, none of us have are in any position to argue this. That being said, it does not necessarily mean that he thinks that the PS3 is a worse system, just that during its development, he feels that some questionable decisions were made. What can be taken from this, perhaps, is that more games will be developed for the XBox 360 as compared to the PS3. This says nothing about the quality of the games either.

    Quick question, I tried out the PS3 at Best Buy and was actually put off by the graphics. They are so perfect and polished that I could instantly tell how fake they were, thus kind of breaking my suspension of disbelief and almost putting me off playing it. Has anyone else noticed this?
    • Kwipper, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I remember when I saw the graphics on the PS3 and well.. by PC standards they look quite dated. I figured that we would finally be in the console generation where jagged edges on polygons were a thing of the past, yet none of the demos I tried had any use of Anti-Aliasing. If the PS3 is so powerful as they say, then why isn't Anti-Aliasing being used. The chipset is also based on a 7800 GTX if I remember correctly, which should provide no excuse for not using Anti-Aliasing techniques for the graphics.

      Feh. The PS3 is already outdated by the PC, which IMHO is quite sad.
    • shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think you need to wait and see what developers come up with in the next year or so. Either way I can't afford one.
    • Rayonic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1> "I think you need to wait and see what developers come up with in the next year or so."

      Original Xbox launch titles looked better than what the PS2 had to offer at the time.

      So why isn't it the same with the PS3 and Xbox360 this time around?
  • Kwipper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I loved the Playstation 2. It was a gaming machine. However, right now I am quite pissed off at Sony. They're too cocky for their own good and I really hope to see them get knocked down a few levels. I hope the PS3 fails as a product and Sony learns from their mistakes with their next console.

    a.) Don't over-hype your product. You have no idea what the future may bring. Not to mention we as the consumer are catching onto this tactic and were proving it now by not buying your PS3.
    b.) Don't focus on graphics and capabilities of your machine. Focus on ease of use for the developer and consumer. This way the developers will have an easy time making games for your system (as opposed to leaving your system for other alternatives) and the consumers will have an easier time using your console.
    c.) Try to keep the hardware development costs as small as possible. The last time I checked, the video game user-base is not upper class or even middle-class. Try aiming for the lower to middle class area. Oh and don't use that excuse of "The price of the PS3 will force gamers to basically get off of their asses and work hard to purchase one. Yay! I am improving our society's work ethic". You are a video game console developer, it is not your job to force people to improve work ethic.
    d.) In addition to c.) focus your efforts on games. Build your console around playing games. This means do not use propiatary hardware that may or may not become a standard. At least this way there won't be any hardware that will become useless in the future.
  • Apreche, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wolf 3D for SNES last time they worked with Nintendo? What about Quake 2 for N64?
    • Stonedonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yar, Wikipedia knows all!

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_2#Nintendo_64_version

      "This version, unlike the PlayStation version, had completely different levels and multiplayer maps which had never been seen before. This version also had new lighting effects, mostly seen on gun fire, and also used the expansion pack to offer extra graphical detail."

    • lightguard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That was a port done by someone else. ID didn't really have much to do with that.
  • Johannesrexx, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2It is unfortunate that Carmack has chosen to "endorse" the xbox. I would have expected him to stick to higher ground. PS3 is brand new while Xbox is old technology. His expertise is in game design not on hardware design. For me it doesn't matter what he thinks anymore. The pathetic performance of the Doom 3 engine and hence that of Quack 4 has done little to enhance Id's stature. What we have now is Id inadvertently making way for its competitors to take market share away from Id for PS3 titles. PS3 is more interesting because it's much more OPEN. YDL runs on it.
    • Stonedonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6He's more of an engine designer than a game designer -- where he has been historically amazing. This kind of expertise requires intimate knowledge of the hardware. And given how often his company apparently gets secret prototypes, I would say he is often consulted and can give feedback on a very technical level. He could probably design a video card if he wanted to. I don't doubt that the specs have floated through his head more than once.
    • Ganchula, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1@ Stonedonkey

      No, he couldn't design a video card if he wanted to, except at the very highest abstract level. Software & hardware design are two different worlds.
    • Agret, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"PS3 is brand new while Xbox is old technology. His expertise is in game design not on hardware design."
      Old technology? Eh? And yeah, to design games you need to run them on what....hardware of course, of course he knows about the hardware on these consoles as he's used it before.

      @Ganchula
      Knowledge of hardware and hardware design are completely different. Knowing about hardware access and programming for it is way different to laying otu the board and designing all the components. You're an idiot if you thought Stonedonkey was triyng to claim he could design hardware.

      In short: Carmack does not design hardware, he designs FOR hardware.
    • Ganchula, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@ Agret

      "Knowledge of hardware and hardware design are completely different. "

      Yeah, that's the point I was making. Why are you arguing with me by agreeing with me?

      Stonedonkey said

      "He could probably design a video card if he wanted to. "

      Sounds like he's claiming Carmack could design hardware. Doesn't it? Are you on crack or something?
  • uberdesigner, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1this is by far the most boring PS3 vs 360 thread on Digg
  • Derrelicte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Am I the only person excited about an id-developed FPS game on the DS?
    • NeoTechni, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am now. Imagine Doom on DS with the map on the bottom screen with touch weapon selection
  • Starflyer59, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub.
    -Carnac the Magnificent
  • Sethwm2, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2"It is not like the Playstation 3 is a piece of junk or anything" Ummmmm.. Yes it is..
  • Reno582, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I think he said that Developing on the PS3 required a different IDE for each of the 7 SPEs, yeah good going there Sony.
    • NeoTechni, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2No. That's not how it works. The SPEs get their own compiler, but they use the same programming language (C++) as the PPC core. You just have to code a little differently for them
    • alx242, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You basically put specific code for different SPUs in different source code and compile them independently. Then you merge them with main program. It's not so hard to do but it requires some planning of which part you want each core to handle. IBM has a great webpage on how this is done (and how to test it in Linux on the PS3). But still it's just a planning process of what goes where. But I guess MS have built some ultra smoooooth way of abstracting this from the developer or whatever, I still prefer to be in control of what my programs do so I would rather do it the IBM way (and most probable the Sony way too).
  • WaltJay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Early comment of the year candidate:

    From "John Carmack Prefers 360, Still Supporting PS3"
    http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3156329

    "john carmack? that's the rock's name?
    Author: dulun19, 01/10/2007

    i guess the guy starting to use his real name now, especially after he started acting... still most movie he's in a not that great... could do better."

    http://www.1up.com/do/userFeedbackDetail?cId=3156329&r=7768862&ct=NEWS


  • duketogo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4I love how all of you "know" the ps3 is a "piece of garbage", having never even played one. Go back to your FPS.
    • Agret, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You do realise the PS3 is out, right? I've played on both the 360 and the PS3 and I must say that the 360 is looking better at the moment, the PS3 is rendering ugly stuff =( As carmack has said though, the developers that spend twice as long developing as they should will be able to utilize the PS3 in future and those games will surpass the 360's offerings. It's simply a question of whether those select titles are going to be any good though. I expect Square will make some games that fully utilize the PS3 though.
  • sachmanb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yay it's Carmack. In high school he was my programming hero, I'd read his .plan file and see if I could get insights on how to be a better programmer =). An early role model.....I enjoyed making those Quake mods..... Good to see his name again since I don't play many games anymore! Yay
  • digitallysick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No thanks, i will just play text based games on my commodore 64
  • spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For those who don't know why id has kept away from Nintendo, it's because id was forced to remove the blood from Wolfenstein 3D and change the guard dogs to giant rats.
  • Ganchula, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I can understand why he prefers the 360 to the ps3, there's no doubt that the 360 is easier to program and easier to make a game run fast on.

    It seems odd to me that he criticizes the whole idea of increasingly parallel hardware though - this is something that we just have to live with. It's economics - it's cheaper to make several deeply pipelined processors than one really fast low latency processor. Obviously everyone would rather have a single arbitrarily fast processor but that's just not in the cards. I don't understand why he bothers complaining about that.
    • linkbeat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4John Carmack has been in bed with Microsoft for a LONG time. Sorry, but I don't trust anything re: Microsoft that comes out of his mouth. Did he lead and create great PC games? Of course. Did he say that the original Xbox would be the most successful console before it was released? Yep.
    • Rayonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just because it's easier to make multi-core processors doesn't magically make games more parallelizable.
  • Hercules, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I don't get it... it costs more money to develop for the PS3 for any developer. It takes more time, more resources, and in the end the game comes out very much the same in quality as the 360.

    I think that's all he's saying. That the 360 is preferable because he doesn't want to invest all his time to make a game for a console manufacturer that isn't giving him the tools to make it easy to deliver. And since the breakeven point on games is so high now, having lower development costs is something to take into definite consideration.
    • staticneuron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I don't get it... it costs more money to develop for the PS3 for any developer. It takes more time, more resources, and in the end the game comes out very much the same in quality as the 360."

      Where do you get your facts from? The ps3 final dev kits started shipping around E3 06. Many devs stated that they would not make games based off of targets (as they are subject to change) so it is quite easy to say that work on final kits started 8 months before the ps3 launch. I have never heard of a full game being made in nine months so I highly doubt that these launch titles are even a fairly good picture of what the PS3 is capable off. But if it makes you feel better that "PORTS" seem to be better on the 360 right now, then go purchase one. I have never bought a console based off of the quality of its multiplatform titles but I guess to each his own.
  • maxinux, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Well as I understand of his speech that the PS3 is too powerful and professional for them to develop games on it.
  • alx242, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I agree with Carmack on many levels and their development at ID has always pleased me being a Linux user and all (they have ported almost every singel one of their games to it). I do believe that MS has aided developers in the ease of developing for the xbux. However being a developer myself and seeing the support Sony have for Linux on their platform I would myself love to get my hands on a devkit and fool around with it. I would hate using the MS devkit as it most definitely would force me into using Windows. But Carmack has never been a outspoken supporter of Linux and such, however I know for a fact that Timothee "TTimo" Besseta at ID is a great Linux developer and I bet he would rather try out some other systems then being MS locked down.

    All in all UT2007 is coming for PS3 and thus one of the greatest (if not the greatest) engine will get a PS3 port and thus all is fine and dandy for the PS3 still...:)
  • mrgreen371, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Would Carmack being pro Xbox have anything to do with the fact that Abrash worked on the Xbox?
  • qwertydvorak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Commenting specifically on the internal architecture of the PlayStation 3, Carmack said: “I think the decision to use an asymmetric CPU by Sony was a wrong one. There are aspects that could make it a winning decision, but they’re not helpful to the developers.”

    He added, “I’ve been pulling for Microsoft, because I think they’ve done a better job for development support, and I think they have made somewhat smarter decisions on the platform. It’s not like the PlayStation 3 is a piece of junk or anything … they just took a design decision that wasn’t the best from a development standpoint.”


    in other words, microsoft understands that it's "developers...developers...developers...developers..."
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4
  • SPARTACVS, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I really don't get why all the 12 year old Sony fanboys who don't know ***** about game development just say that Carmack is "lazy" whenever he criticizes Sony's over-complicated processor. They're just convinced by Sony that "teh Cell pwns all" and that's the end of it.
  • jm9206755, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like id as much as the next guy and Carmack is a great coder. But when I hear statements like this it reminds me of other visionaries such as James Watt or Thomas Edison slamming other people's innovations and ultimately becoming irrelevent in their industries because they couldn't see beyond their own work.
  • canyonclimber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Carmack is a revolutionary, although he has never been right about consoles.
    I remember when he championed the Atari Jaguar; you don't know what that is? Obviously it didn't do so well. Then there was the time he said he would NEVER develop for a Nintendo console again after they made him change Wolfenstein's German Shepards into giant rats. The guy is a genius; but he knows more about launching rockets than he does about consoles.
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