Speaking at a launch event for the Xbox version of Doom 3, id Software's CEO Todd Hollenshead confirmed Quake IV will be playable at QuakeCon X, before going on to speak about the development of id games on next-generation platforms.

Prompted by a question from the crowd, Hollenshead spoke frankly about the development of future id games - including Quake IV - on next-gen consoles, pointing out that it's in the company's financial interest to do so.

"Future console development is really more of a financial question than anything else," he pointed out. "Over the past few years, PC game sales have either declined a little bit or stayed relatively flat, while console game sales have seen mostly double-digit growth."

However, despite mooting the importance of console development, Hollenshead was unsure as to whether these versions of games would appear at the same time as the primarily-PC-developed versions.

"I don't know if we'll be releasing multiple SKUs at the same time, but as for PS3 and Xbox 2 and so on, yes, we will continue our development effort on the consoles," he confirmed.

When asked why only one of the current-gen machines received a version of Doom 3, Hollenshead pointed out the decision was a result of technical limitations rather than an allegiance to one particular console.

"Xbox was the only viable choice," he said. "We could probably get the game to run on other consoles, but the frame rate wouldn't be steady, and we'd have to make too many compromises."

Hollenshead was also keen to dispel any rumours suggesting the Xbox-only decision was the result of a Microsoft cash bung. "Microsoft didn't pay us anything to choose Xbox," he insisted. "It's simply the only console currently available that can handle our game with the intended results."