Gamers Don't Need Vista or DX 10 Says Carmack

Freshly Exhumed writes "In an interview with Marcus Yam at Daily Tech legendary PC/Console game creator John Carmack holds forth on DirectX 10: 'Personally, I wouldn't jump at something like DX10 right now. I would let things settle out a little bit and wait until there's a really strong need for it.' and then zings Microsoft's marketers over DX10's mandatory use of the Vista OS: 'Carmack then said that he's quite satisfied with Windows XP, going as far to say that Microsoft is artificially forcing gamers to move to Windows Vista for DX10.' There are a few good tidbits on Xbox 360 vs. PS3 development, and a fairly clear disinterest in Wii as a platform for his company's products is shown."

Comments

Interesting that he's not interested in Wii dev.

[xantho]

Considering that he's got a long history of doing incredible graphics on relatively garbage hardware, e.g., real scrolling, platformer style on a PC that just couldn't do it using conventional means, using ray tracing to render a 3d looking scene in 2d, I'd think that pushing out gorgeous graphics on the Wii would be a nice challenge for him. Then again, why tackle that problem for the third (fourth, fifth?) time. It gets old hat after a while.

Gotta respect the man.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only does he make kick arse engines, he's a straight talker in a world a spin merchants. He's helped Microsoft improve Direct X (while supporting OpenGL), praised them for their Xbox 360 development tools, but can call a spade a spade. Objectivity. Love it, live it.

Re:Interesting that he's not interested in Wii dev

[AKAImBatman]

I'd think that pushing out gorgeous graphics on the Wii would be a nice challenge for him.

You need to keep in mind that Id Software has made a business out of driving better graphical performance out of more and more advanced hardware, generally planning their engines to target the hardware available in the future rather than at the time of engine creation. So for them, the Wii is 90 degrees offset from their core competency while the XBox 360 and PS3 are more along the lines of what Id has long been interested in. To that end, the Wii is going to seem like too simplistic a device to be of interest to Id.

I think you'll find that it will take quite a while before the industry as a whole gets used to the idea of the Wii. It was a somewhat unexpected development (in comparison to the years of advance notice they're used to), leaving developers wondering what exactly should they be doing with this thing? If the Wii continues to deliver in the long term, however, you may see Id warm up to the idea a lot more. Not to mention that the next generation of consoles will be fought without a gamepad in sight. ;)

Re:One thing..

[PygmySurfer]

No DX10 on WinXP could be a real killer for DX, if developers feel the need to target both Vista and XP users, OpenGL could be the way to go....

Or DX9 ...

Re:Interesting that he's not interested in Wii dev

[Zebra_X]

Not really, Carmack is a polygon guru. The Wii is decidedly not about the graphics and more about the gameplay and usability. Thus, Carmack is not interested because his skills lay in making games that use traditional interaction methods.

Re:MMORPG

[WhiteWolf666]

As it stands, that's all irrelevant.

World of Warcraft IS the bulk of the MMORPG market. World of Warcraft has an active OS X user base. The OS X client uses OpenGL, exclusively.

World of Warcraft will never require DirectX 10 exclusively; it will always have an OpenGL client.

Ergo, the bulk of the MMORPG market will not require DirectX 10.

Re:Interesting that he's not interested in Wii dev

[AKAImBatman]

Not everyone who plays video games is physically capable of using the Wii.

Actually, it's the other way around. If you've got enough mobility to use a gamepad, you've got enough mobility to use the small motions that the Wii requires. (The whole "standing up and jump around" thing is just for fun.) Since many games only require the Wiimote and not the Nunchuck, it represents the first time in history that one-armed players can use a video game console - with some footnote exceptions like light guns.

I forget exactly where I saw it, but there was a fellow doing charity work who saw a one-armed kid get a Wii to play with. He said that the kid enjoyed it immensely, and that it was the first time he had ever been able to actually play video games. The problem was that Gamepads and Joysticks had been inaccessable to him because they required two, fully functional arms and hands.

Something to think about, anyway.