id Software co-founder John Carmack in a talk today characterized the iPad as having enough power to trump some modern consoles. He agreed with initial Rage HD players that the Apple tablet can produce better results than any Wii game and about a quarter of Xbox 360 titles. Both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 have “several times” more power, Kotaku was told, but many games waste the power where the iPad is only beginning to grow.
“We’re nowhere close to maxing out what could be done on an iPad,” Carmack said.
He nonetheless noted that id might not become a major mobile game publisher. First-person shooters weren’t ideally suited to smartphone controls, since they were a step down from gamepad control and another step removed from a mouse and keyboard.
