Creator of Doom Thinks Sony's NGP Is the Bee's Knees

[Greg Tito]

Creator of Doom Thinks Sony's NGP Is the Bee's Knees

John Carmack knows a lot more than I do about how videogames work, so his vote of confidence for Sony's new handheld speaks volumes.

Cutting his teeth on some of the most revolutionary games of the early 1990s like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom at id Software, Carmack designs and programs the graphics engine that most of his games run on. His Twitter feed is often unintelligible for us laymen for his prevalent use of computing terms and jargon, in addition to esoteric mentions of fuel experiments for his rocketry side-gig (Carmack's Armadillo team won the X-Prize in 2008.) So when Carmack stated that he thinks Sony is doing the right thing with the NGP handheld announced today [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107321-Sony-Finally-Confirms-New-PSP], I'm going to take his words seriously.

"Low level APIs will allow the Sony NGP to perform about a generation beyond smart phones with comparable specs," Carmack's Tweet read today [http://twitter.com/#!/ID_AA_Carmack/status/30655938016837632].

I'm not 100 percent sure what that means, but essentially "low level APIs" give designers more control over how their application interfaces with the memory and CPU of a device. If that means that the Sony NGP will work even better than its specs might indicate, then that's certainly going to be awesome.

What do you think? Will Sony give Nintendo and Apple a run for their money in the handheld gaming market with the NGP?

Source: Joystiq [http://twitter.com/#!/ID_AA_Carmack/status/30655938016837632]

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[Irridium]

Normally I'd say "whatever", but this is John Carmack after all.

But, it depends on how much it costs. It'd have to be priced low for many people to buy it. And pricing low isn't exactly Sony's strong suit.

 

[Irridium]

Normally I'd say "whatever", but this is John Carmack after all.

But, it depends on how much it costs. It'd have to be priced low for many people to buy it. And pricing low isn't exactly Sony's strong suit.

That's not entirely fair, the PS3 was sold at the lowest price Sony themselves could afford. Otherwise, it would've been on shelves for over $800 at launch. In the very least, Sony's at least willing to sell things at a loss.

In the end, it doesn't matter. What matters is what people are willing to pay, and most people weren't willing to pay $600.

 

[KaosuHamoni]

Things are looking good for Sony's new handheld. If rumors are true, and I can play PS3 + NGP games cross-platform, then I am so getting this...

[sub][sub][sub]Jeez... how the fuck am I supposed to be able to afford both the 3DS, and the NGP... =[[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[teh_Canape]

so...

does that mean that he will be making games now for NeoGeo Pocket?

sorry, I sort of refuse to call the PSP2 a NGP

too much childhood invested in those 3 letters

 

[Dioxide20]

I think this will blow both the Apple and Nintendo completely out of the water... if Sony can keep the price down, which is highly unlikely considering Sony's track record.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

That's all lovely and wonderful, but if it costs a bomb no one's going to buy it. If it's a reasonable price and the games are good though, then Sony might finally have made a great handheld device. At least I hope so, because I damn well want one, although these API thingies didn't have much to do with that.

 

[Madmanonfire]

What do you think? Will Sony give Nintendo and Apple a run for their money in the handheld gaming market with the NGP?

Not a chance. It's gonna flop.
But if it does turn out to be worth playing, then more fun for us gamers.
And I refuse to accept Apple as a contender here strictly because they're all just glorified flash games to me. It should be between Nintendo and Sony.

 

[SovietSecrets]

Well shucks looks like I will be buying 3DS and the NGP. Both of them look insanely cool.

 

[thristhart]

An API is an application programming interface - it's how a programmer makes use of resources from within their program. For example, there's a twitter API, that allows a program to easily communicate with twitter.

In relation to programming, low-level vs. high-level refers to how much work a computer or processor has to do in order to convert from an instruction given to an instruction a CPU can understand.

A high-level instruction might look like this: "print 'Hello'" whereas a low-level instruction might be in binary. Obviously, it's easier for a human to work with "print 'Hello'" than with binary, but the trade-off is that the computer has to work harder to understand the high-level stuff.

Because of this, exposing lower-level APIs to developers allows them to increase performance, and get more out of the same specs than when using high-level APIs.

Hopefully that makes sense to you guys!

 

[Vault Citizen]

it may be the bees knees but is it the cats pyjamas?

 

[Irridium]

Normally I'd say "whatever", but this is John Carmack after all.

But, it depends on how much it costs. It'd have to be priced low for many people to buy it. And pricing low isn't exactly Sony's strong suit.

That's not entirely fair, the PS3 was sold at the lowest price Sony themselves could afford. Otherwise, it would've been on shelves for over $800 at launch. In the very least, Sony's at least willing to sell things at a loss.

In the end, it doesn't matter. What matters is what people are willing to pay, and most people weren't willing to pay $600.

Well, it kind of does, for those who actually researched the purchase (myself included), a 60g PS3 w/ BC, was much more economical as a games device + Blu Ray player, than say...a PS3 without BC, that lets people be nickle and dimed over republished PS2 games. I get what you're saying though, would've been nice for Sony, if they could've launched at a lower price point, but it just wasn't possible given the tech they were introducing in the machine (XDR Ram, Cell Processor and Blu Ray).

If anything, their biggest mistake was not allowing devs more access to the machine pre-launch...like years before launch, so that they could have launched with titles like they're producing now, as opposed to their launch portfolio.

True enough I suppose. Although I'll still yell at them for thinking the most expensive stuff will equal success. And it could have used more good games at launch.

 

[Flauros]

It sucks when somethings coming out and its not an Ipad or Angry Birds, people are like "psshhh, next gen graphics in MY handheld? Thats probably gonna be dumb"


Sad, very sad.

Were flying to mars? Whats the matter, cant make it to Pluto?





I obviously think its gonna be awesome, de facto that im getting it. I like videogames. They are fun.

 

[Desworks]

I mean, the NGP supposedly is a mini-PS3

My feeling is that it's this fact that might be the problem for the NGP. The more powerful the handheld is, the higher the dev costs will be, and that will cause the games to cost more, which leads to people mainly buying games that they know will provide them with value for their money, which kills all those little interesting titles that thrive on handhelds.

That said, I feel the 3ds could well have a similar problem and can only hope that both Sony and Nintendo have some good plans for a online marketplace for all those interesting ideas to go too. And if not, the PSP and DS have a substantial back catalogue that I'm still getting through, so I won't be getting bored on the bus anytime soon.