Quake founder John Carmack: iPhone better than dedicated gaming systems

If you have an iPhone or, better yet, an iPhone 3G, you’re probably well aware of how powerful the iPhone is as a media, web surfing, and gaming platform. Pairing a powerful set of processors and graphics acceleration technologies with the huge multi-touch display has made for a mobile gaming platform unlike any other currently available.

So much so that John Carmack, of Quake-fame, has gone on record as saying that the iPhone is “more powerful than a Nintendo DS and PSP combined.” Carmack went on to say that the iPhone’s  hardware was equivalent to a Sega Dreamcast gaming console, and comparable to the Sony PlatStation 2 or Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Xbox. Those are huge statements, especially from the co-founder of id, the company that created one of the more hardware-intensive gaming titles out there – most of you will know Quake intimately.

The Quaker-maker says that id is currently toiling away to release 2 new iPhone games through the AppStore. One of the iPhone games will be a more conventional (read: pared down) gaming title, while the other will aim to take the iPhone to the edge of its graphical performance envelope – a goal worthy of id’s hardware-taxing software.

Still, Carmack says Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) needs to seriously consider their stance on iPhone gaming. Apple isn’t exactly always helpful to game developers, like id, looking to make “game-changing” software for the iPhone. If Apple can get a grasp on their iPhone-as-gaming-console concept, then the iPhone will certainly rise to the top of the mobile gaming-crop.

[Via: MobileCrunch]

Image from phonedifferent.com