Says that the increase in power will not deliver more innovation

Jun 20, 2012 20:31 GMT  ·  By

The man who brought the world such video games as Heretic, Doom and Quake believes that the next console generation from Microsoft and Sony will be unimpressive and will only make the game we already know look a little better.

John Carmack, who is the leader of id Software, has told Games Industry that, “When people ask how tapped out is the current console generation, PCs are 10 times as powerful but you really are still not technically limited.

“Any creative vision that a designer could come up with, we can do a pretty good job representing on current generation and certainly on PC. In many ways I am not all that excited about the next generation.”

Carmack has long been directly involved in the technical aspect of game development and that gives him a good vantage point to watch over what the next gaming hardware might deliver.

He added, “If you take a current game like Halo which is a 30 hertz game at 720p; if you run that at 1080p, 60 frames with high dynamic frame buffers, all of a sudden you’ve sucked up all the power you have in the next-generation.”

The new devices from both Sony and Microsoft will probably adhere to the DirectX 11 standard, which will mean that gamers get better graphics across the board.

Carmack believes true virtual worlds are still unattainable for home consoles and that simply pushing graphics quality up might actually create an uncanny valley effect that will make some games harder to enjoy.

Id Software’s most recent release is RAGE, the first-person shooter that was launched in late 2011 and represented the first outing of the all-new id Tech 5 engine.

Rumors suggest that the Carmack led developer might be ready to deliver an expansion pack for the game, called The Scorchers, which could arrive before the end of 2012.