Carmack: Mobile Devices to Overtake PS3, 360 in Two Years

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eurogamer

Mobile phones will in two years be more powerful than the current generation of consoles, programming legend John Carmack has said.

But, as of now, the power of mobile tech is "exaggerated", the id Software co-founder told IndustryGamers.

"It's unquestionable that within a very short time, we're going to have portable cell phones that are more powerful than the current-gen consoles," Carmack predicted

"People have exaggerated the relative powers - the iPad2 is not more powerful than the 360. It's still a factor of a couple weaker.

"But the fact that it's gotten that close that fast - that means that almost certainly, two years from now, there will be mobile devices more powerful than what we're doing all these fabulous games on right now."

At E3 last month Carmack, who is applying the finishing touches to upcoming first-person shooter Rage, told Eurogamer mobile phones may eventually be powerful enough to act as home consoles.

"People's telephones could be their home console, and it just beams over to the TV set when they're there and they want that experience," he said. "Do we want these separate walled gardens: here's what we've got on our PC, here's what we've got on our console, here's what we've got on our mobile phone?

"There's at least an argument that you wind up carrying around enough processing power with you to satisfy all of those and you dock them into different things."

---

Link

This makes complete sense and really puts the Wii U in a shitty spot. Carmack has previously said that the PS4/NeXtbox will be 10x more powerful than the current gen, while the Wii U is only 1.5x more powerful.

so wait, technology that hasn't been developed yet will be as/more powerful than the technology that preceded it? stop the presses!

dude needs to make us another doom or something instead of being patcher-lite

I think that Carmack is correct (I'm sure he feels great about that), and I think it's interesting, but I don't see how it affects anything business-wise. People aren't buying 360 and PS3 for fancy graphics, people in general don't care about fancy graphics. Those systems are "good enough" and I doubt that will change. The next round of systems need more than better graphics to sell.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Diff-chan

People aren't buying 360 and PS3 for fancy graphics, people in general don't care about fancy graphics. Those systems are "good enough" and I doubt that will change. The next round of systems need more than better graphics to sell.

---

More such as... also being your mobile device.

Sounds right to me. I can see scads of people dumping their consoles for iOS. I did.

Battery life will be 5 minutes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cka

so wait, technology that hasn't been developed yet will be as/more powerful than the technology that preceded it? stop the presses!

dude needs to make us another doom or something instead of being patcher-lite

---

I think it's fair to say that any technology that will be mass marketed in two years has already been developed.

I can't plug my arcade stick into a phone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon

I can't plug my arcade stick into a phone.

---

I think this statement covers a lot of things like that:

Quote:

---

"There's at least an argument that you wind up carrying around enough processing power with you to satisfy all of those and you dock them into different things."

---

That makes me think of where you have things like a docking station on your entertainment center, and you plug your mobile device into it which turns it into a console of sorts with controllers and a TV hookup. Like some kind of marriage between OnLive and smartphones, which could honestly be kind of awesome.

Plus that means you can take your shit to anyone's house that also has a dock and immediately have all your games and unlocked shit right there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon

I can't plug my arcade stick into a phone.

---

If it supported Bluetooth you could.

Downfall of humanity.