When I first read this, I though to myself "No! John Carmack IS id! He needs his full attention there, and not fiddling around with some sort of questionable technology!"
But after my nerdgasm cooled down, I realized this is the best place for Carmack. As much as I love him, that dude really hasn't been relevant in games for quite awhile. While the technology he's created has still been cool (sort of), the actual games have been severely lacking. He just hasn't made something good in a decade.
There's no denying that Carmack is a genius. He's likely the most talented programmer in the business, even today, and his side projects of building rockets and lord knows what else are testament to his intelligence.
Having Carmack work on hardware and emerging technologies is exactly where he needs to be, and the entire industry should benefit from his brilliance.
I largely think getting Carmack on board is sort of a marketing move, both in the interest of marketing to end users eventually but for now more so to marketing towards investors. All the same, I'm sure he will be somewhat involved technically.
Well from a hardware standpoint, there's not a whole left to do for Carmack at this point in time. Where he'll excel is software - either in continuing development and improving the platform, or in convincing devs to work with them and strengthen adoption.
Sigh.. this doesn't bode well for EQNext. Especially with Sony spewing the crap about "fixing everything wrong with MMOs." EQNext is based on the Planetside2 engine - which SOE has applied a strict 'no UI mods allowed' policy to.
Carmack's a good choice for CTO though. If anybody's going to come up with applications and solutions, it's gonna be him.
Comments
But after my nerdgasm cooled down, I realized this is the best place for Carmack. As much as I love him, that dude really hasn't been relevant in games for quite awhile. While the technology he's created has still been cool (sort of), the actual games have been severely lacking. He just hasn't made something good in a decade.
There's no denying that Carmack is a genius. He's likely the most talented programmer in the business, even today, and his side projects of building rockets and lord knows what else are testament to his intelligence.
Having Carmack work on hardware and emerging technologies is exactly where he needs to be, and the entire industry should benefit from his brilliance.
All the same, I'm sure he will be somewhat involved technically.
/speculation
Carmack's a good choice for CTO though. If anybody's going to come up with applications and solutions, it's gonna be him.