The Xbox 360 – Killing on the Way

John Carmack, head of making killing games at id Software and generally respected king of games geeks, has made one of the boldest platform support claims yet regarding the looming generation of hardware.

Speaking at QuakeCon last night in the US - or this morning in the UK if you’re awake in the middle of the night, tirelessly researching the latest in videogame news - Carmack made a few comments that Microsoft’s Xbox team can pretty much take to the bank.

“The intention is I’m probably going to be spending the next six months or so focusing on Xbox 360 as a primary development platform, where I’ll be able to get the graphics technology doing exactly what I want, to the performance that I want, on this platform where I have minimal interface between me and the hardware,” said Carmack.

He continued, “In the last couple weeks I actually have started working on an Xbox 360. Most of the upcoming graphics development work will be starting on that initially. It’s worth going into the reasons for that decision on there. To be clear, the PC platform [Quake 4] will be released at least at the same time if not earlier than any of the consoles but we are putting a good deal more effort towards making sure that the development process goes smoothly onto them.”

Which is great news to hear. With all the talk of party, puzzle and role-playing games for the Japanese market, it’s good to hear that the Xbox 360 will do what it’s predecessor did so well. Let annoying children kill each other over Xbox Live, whilst swearing, being homophobic and racist.