Could Doom 3 be a Xbox Exclusive?

acehole writes "Doom III, id's latest and greatest in the realm of first-person shooters, may be coming out as an Xbox exclusive... if Microsoft has its way." This story is very brief, has no real evidence, and should be treated as entirely speculative. I'd be sad if Doom 3 required me to use the X-Box's controller. It's just not right without a mouse!

Comments

hmm

[abhisarda]

Where Is Doom III Going?
07-APR-03
An article in the current issue of Wired magazine confirms what a lot of gamers were suspecting already: Microsoft is actively courting id Software for the exclusive console rights to Doom III. According to the article--a feature on current developments in the jaw-dropping PC FPS--the company behind the Xbox is offering an undisclosed amount of money to id in exchange for the right to make their latest game an Xbox-only title as far as consoles are concerned. (It'd still come out on the PC, of course.)
The folks at id reportedly haven't made a decision on the matter yet--it seems a reasonable enough assumption (lead programmer John Carmack has made comments in the past that seem to show a preference for the Xbox), but we'll see how it turns out. The PC game will likely be playable at the Electronic Entertainment Expo next month in Los Angeles.

The Wired article also had one more interesting bit on the PC version: in addition to the multiplayer expansion pack Carmack hinted at earlier, plans are also in the works for a new single-player expansion pack, due to be released some time after the final product hits stores. We'll have more details for you soon, so stay tuned.

Re:hmm

[los furtive]

An article in the current issue of Wired magazine confirms what a lot of gamers were suspecting already: Microsoft is actively courting id Software for the exclusive console rights to Doom III.

That's what I figured. Thanks /. for getting peoples panties in a knot for nothing.

Re:hmm

[Glyndwr]

Go and read Carmack's .plan file, archived here; he's already said the Xbox can run Doom3 equivalently to a PC. Doom3 only has no support for high level shaders used in DX9 class hardware.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Carmack has said a few things in regard to this:

1. He can increase performance by 50% by optimizing for a fixed plattform (Xbox)
2. Doom3 was designed with NV20 (GeForce 3) level features as the baseline--the NV20 rendering path has all the eye-candy of the ARB2 or NV30 rendering path (see this interview with JC over at Beyond3D).
3. A NV20 (GeForce 3) will be able to run Doom3 at 30FPS with max detail at 1024x768. It's a single-player game as well, so 60FPS+ isn't that big of a concern. With R300/350/NV30/35, you'll be able to get much higher framerates and use of anisotropic filtering and antialiasing. BUT, the game will be playable on a GF3.
4. The only thing that would have to be cut for an Xbox version would be some of the higher-res textures because of the Xbox's memory constraints--however, those textures would also be completely unnoticeable because of the much lower resolution on a TV compared to a PC (unless you're playing on an HDTV, of course).

So yeah. Xbox IS a PC, and not an altogether bad one at that. Plus the NV2X core in the Xbox is faster than a GF3, or so most people believe (but not as fast as a GF4).

Read the article

[Anonymous Coward]

It's coming to PC no matter what, this is just for exclusivity on consoles. Perhaps you should have read the article...

Not Xbox exclusive!

[Galvatron]

All Microsoft is negotiating for are the exclusive console rights. Dooom 3 will still be on PC, it's just that the Xbox may be the only console it's released for. In fact, the article specifically mentions that 2 expansion packs are planned for the PC version.

This makes a lot of sense, as the Xbox is the most like a PC of the 3 consoles. It won't take as much work for id to port, and if Microsoft is willing to pay them a bunch of money on top of that, all the better.

Xbox console exclusive != Xbox only

[CaseyB]

"Console Exclusive" is the term used in the industry for excluding other consoles from a game. It doesn't include the PC. GTA3 is "console exclusive" on the PS2, and but there is a PC version.

It may well be the technology that dictates where DOOM3 can play, as it's going to be very dependent on hardware pixel and vertex shaders. It could likely only make it to Gamecube and Xbox anyway, unless they cripple the engine just to get it running on PS2.

Did you fuckheads try reading the article?

[abelsson]

It talks about *console* version only being for the xbox and even says: "It'd still come out on the PC, of course."

Hey, I got a novel idea: How about if the editors acctually read the linked article before they post stories?

Taco comments without RTFA

[Hellkitten]

And even better yet:

"money to id in exchange for the right to make their latest game an Xbox-only title as far as consoles are concerned. (It'd still come out on the PC, of course.)"

I can live with people commenting without having read the articles, but now the editors add their clever comment without having read (or understood) the article

Re:id should take the deal

[D'Arque Bishop]

... and I highly doubt that Nintendo, with its reputation as a for-kids console maker, would like the idea of making Doom III (which is likely to be the goriest first-person shooter ever created) available on their console anyway.

As opposed to games like Resident Evil, Resident Evil 0, Eternal Darkness, and others?

Christ, just because Nintendo's core titles are pretty much geared for all ages doesn't mean they're not going to go for mature titles as well. Hell, they stopped censoring their games back in 1994, after they tried censoring the original Mortal Kombat and got spanked by Sega in sales as a result.

As far as the subject matter goes, though... this really is a non-story, as Carmack's been saying for a while that the X-Box was pretty much the only console he was planning to release Doom III on. Nothing to see here, folks...

Here are Carmack's own words

[John Siracusa]

From the May 2003 print edition of Wired, page 153:

"We're being offered a pretty significant amount of money to sit on it until an Xbox port is done." -- John Carmack

"It" meaning Doom 3, of course. So MS is trying to get Id to delay Doom 3 for all platforms until an Xbox port is done. (Presumably, it'd come out for the PC first without any outside influence.) Do you really want to sit around while Id finishes the Xbox port, knowing that the PC version of Doom 3 is done?

Re:Id would never do that

[kesuki]

You're forgetting one thing, a GC port is possible, because the CPU is very similar to the Mac. True, it has a custom ArtX (now owned by ATI) gpu, but, assuming that Doom 3 supports macs, porting it to GC is plausible. And the other question is how long is the deal that Id has to sign with microsoft. they could have an exclusive xbox port for a year or two, and maybe then port to GC, which will still be around, as nintendo won't drop support until after they have a next gen console established to replace it.