Industry legend John Carmack has stated his belief that Sony’s forthcoming PlayStation Vita will look “pokey” when compared to smartphones of the future.
Specifically, the id Software co-founder reckons Vita will be outclassed by smartphones in just a couple of years.
"I wouldn’t want to be the executive making the decision to launch a new portable gaming machine in the post-smartphone world," said Carmack, during a chat with GameSpot. "I think that they’ve picked as eminently a suitable hardware spec as they could for that. They’re going to have you program for it like a console, so it’s going to seem twice as powerful as a smartphone with the exact same chips in there.”
"But of course, by the time they actually ship, there may be smartphones or these tablets with twice as much power as what they’re shipping with on there. And a year or two after that, it’s going to look pretty pokey."
For Vita to succeed, says Carmack, Sony must ensure that the transition between console and handheld development for triple-A software remains a trouble-free process.
"The key to their success, if there’s going to be a success there, is allowing people to more or less directly move over the console development engine to technologies on there," he offered.
"Because you know, you don’t have people making $50 million budget iOS games. You make a game that’s fun and quick to do, and you grab low-hanging fruit with the technology there. So, even if that plays out, such that people find that they can easily bring over their full-on, full-blown triple-A console titles and put it on [the Vita], that’s going to give it a reason for existence."