E3: Carmack sees long future for next-gen consoles

Doom creator John Carmack, who's been at E3 2012 to show off the upcoming re-release of Doom 3, says he sees a long future for the next generation of consoles.

Speaking to CVG, Carmack said that he thought cloud gaming would play a big part in the future of the industry too, though he didn't want to speculate too strongly.

“Console gaming might morph,” he explained. “You can certainly see cloud gaming being built into every display device and traditional consoles could become more like the audiophile niche of people who want the extreme experience there.”

Carmack has also been demonstrating a head-mounted virtual reality display at the show too, which caused him to reflect on the balance of advantages and problems with PCs and consoles.

“In many ways this would have been easier to do on consoles,” Carmack said, "but unfortunately you can’t just plug a USB device into a console and have it work; you have to have it certified and go through a whole process."

"That’s a little bit of a shame because even though the PC is ten times more powerful sometimes getting something done at the exact right point is easier on the consoles – it’s a place where you know what scanline you’re on at any point, and so on.”

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