I think the large companies who are invested in the console put these kind of statements out because they know they are sitting ducks when they tie themselves to console technology. STALKER, The Witcher, and Crysis were all high-end PC games made by non-American companies. Crysis didn't sell well because the game wasn't very good, but the STALKER and The Witcher sold very well. I would argue that Crysis ONLY sold because of the graphics. A lightmapped version of Crysis would have sold much worse.
I think id and Epic see they can make more money on the console, but at the same time they don't want to have to compete with anyone on the PC. Two of the best PC games of last year came from unknown studios in Eastern Europe, and the most graphically advanced game of all time is from Germany.
What game magazine called "Portal" Game of the Year? They didn't want to give that recognition to GSC, a tiny studio in the Ukraine, even though STALKER clearly deserved that title. It's humiliating. When id makes statements like this, what they are really saying is this:
There are problems with PC development, and I attribute these to the graphics driver authors, PC distributors that use sh*t GPUs to save costs, and Microsoft for their DirectX 9/10 debacle. If NVidia were the only GPU manufacturer, every computer came standard with a GE Force 8800, and DirectX 10 ran on Windows XP there would be no problems.
Carmack's position does make sense, for his company, but it also ensures that the real innovation will continue to arrive on the PC, and the market there is open for new studios to come in and succeed, while the big boys are stuck making XBox games with the same tech year after year.
I think id and Epic see they can make more money on the console, but at the same time they don't want to have to compete with anyone on the PC. Two of the best PC games of last year came from unknown studios in Eastern Europe, and the most graphically advanced game of all time is from Germany.
What game magazine called "Portal" Game of the Year? They didn't want to give that recognition to GSC, a tiny studio in the Ukraine, even though STALKER clearly deserved that title. It's humiliating. When id makes statements like this, what they are really saying is this:
We are used to being the kings of graphics tech, but we are going to focus on console technology because we will sell more units that way. We just don't want anyone making games on the PC with better graphics, because that would really make us look silly. So nobody should develop exclusively for the PC, okay? Let's just all agree that PCs are "dead" so that nobody has to compete against each other.
There are problems with PC development, and I attribute these to the graphics driver authors, PC distributors that use sh*t GPUs to save costs, and Microsoft for their DirectX 9/10 debacle. If NVidia were the only GPU manufacturer, every computer came standard with a GE Force 8800, and DirectX 10 ran on Windows XP there would be no problems.
Carmack's position does make sense, for his company, but it also ensures that the real innovation will continue to arrive on the PC, and the market there is open for new studios to come in and succeed, while the big boys are stuck making XBox games with the same tech year after year.