John Carmack: Next generation of consoles should last a long time

One of the biggest things John Carmack is involved with at E3 is a Head-Mounted Display running the BFG edition of Doom 3. While Carmack wants PC hobbyists to help advance the HMD software and hardware to the point where it becomes commercially viable, that doesn't mean he didn't consider it for consoles.

"In many ways this would have been easier to do on consoles," he explains, "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. And 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."

As for the future of consoles, he said, "Console gaming might morph. 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."

"I hesitate to predict anything five, six years into the future, but the next generation should last a long time," added Carmack.

GamesIndustry International met up with Carmack at E3 and tested out the head-mounted display; we'll bring you more shortly