Carmack's announced at QuakeCon that the source code for Q3Arena'll be out soon.
What a guy. He goes on to praise the XBox:
Here Carmack heaped praise on the decisions that Microsoft has made with the Xbox 360. "It's the best development environment I've seen on a console," he says. Microsoft has taken a very developer-centric approach, creating a system that's both powerful but easy to code for. This is in contrast to Nintendo, Sony, and (formerly) Sega, who generally focused on the hardware.
Sony may really be in trouble this time round: the rumours that the PS3 are going to be late and expensive won't help. Could it mean CELL ends up being Sony's next ATRAC or Betamax: unused and unloved...?
You're really going after those tickets to Amsterdam, aren't you ;)
Posted by: SharD | August 13, 2005 at 20:34
Since when have John Caramack and his bloated PC code developing crew known the first thing about developing on consoles?
Posted by: | August 13, 2005 at 23:09
"This is in contrast to Nintendo, Sony, and (formerly) Sega, who generally focused on the hardware."
Hmm from what I have heard the easiest console of the current generation to get a game running well in was the gamecube.
Hmm not that I think that MS's dev enviroment will matter much, IMHO developers will be wanting an enviroment that makes multiplatform development the easiest, and I don't think that MS is quite prepared to do this.
Posted by: Factory | August 14, 2005 at 00:32
lol, so cynical Shard :)
Quake 3 was developed on Macs. For Carmack to praise MSoft, they must be doing something right...
Posted by: Alice | August 14, 2005 at 01:38
But isn't the Xbox 360 just a Mac in a pretty case?
Those badly concealed G5s running X360 demos at E3 sorta gave that game away...
Posted by: Stephen | August 14, 2005 at 11:30
Surely it's a Mac in an ugly case?
Posted by: SharD | August 14, 2005 at 18:47
Having a powerPC CPU does not make the 360 a Mac, any more than putting it in a white case makes it an apple design.
Now that Steve Jobs has gone the x86 route, does that make all Macs IBM-Compatible PCs?
Only people that use Macs care about Macs. The rest of us don't care.
Honestly.
Posted by: fuji8bit | August 15, 2005 at 17:16
In response to an anonymous poster,
Carmack has personally developed games for Java handheld devices. They have more various platform experiance at id than you might think.
Code bloat...? I've heard a lot of things about Carmack's code but code bloat was never one of them.
Posted by: Mike Nelson | August 15, 2005 at 20:48
People assume anything developed on a PC is bloated and anything on a console is down to the metal, lean and mean code.
This had and still has some basis in truth, but console games are increasingly developed in a high level language with an eye placed on known bottlenecks and resource shortages (especially memory) - it's basically becoming just like developing for a poor spec PC. Console development is hardly the all assembly lean and mean affair it once was though.
Also Carmack is an expemplary coder, in any context. It takes balls to release game code for everyone to view and criticize and pick apart. Ever seen that with the code for a console game?
Posted by: Doctor_T | August 15, 2005 at 23:11
excellent point Alice, and yes shard that would be in an ugly case ;) I cant stand the case, even though ill be getting a E6O at release. Ill make my own case since the thing can be dis-assembled by hand, at least according to the our colony video. "We will find a way, Or we will make one." DJCarbon43@yahoo.com
Posted by: Carbon43 | August 16, 2005 at 01:04