id Software’s John Carmack: Apple iPhone a significant threat to Nintendo, Sony
Friday, November 06, 2009 - 02:14 PM EST"John Carmack, co-creator of the 'Doom' and 'Quake' franchises believes the time is coming when someone will spend $1 million or more to build an iPhone game," Chris Morris reports for CNBC. "'I wouldn’t be shocked if someone has one in development right now, though they probably don’t realize it will run that high yet,' he says. 'If a title could do well at $9.99, you could put [Nintendo] DS level development expenses into it.'"
"While he’s best known for his work on PC games – and, more recently, traditional console systems—Carmack says the iPhone is where he’s having the most fun. He also sees Apple’s popular smartphone as the gaming system with the biggest potential for future growth," Morris reports.
"It could, in fact, become the dominant portable gaming system, he says, relegating the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to second and third place," Morris reports. "'I think mid- to long-term it’s a significant threat,' he says. 'I don’t carry a DS or a PSP around, but I’ve got my iPhone everywhere. So if it plays good games, I’m less likely to pick one of the others u ... I think the stars could align and it could start to eclipse those other systems in terms of unit sales.'"
"Carmack says he’s less eager to put together games for phones using Google’s Android operating system," Morris reports. "'I have mixed feelings about Android,' he says. 'I‘ve got a warm feeling about the open source model, but a lot of the things that make Linux not-so-wonderful seem to be there in Android. On the iPhone, you know everyone on that device [has the same functionality and hardware], while on Android, you’re across the board on a number of different things… The marketplace is also apparently not well handled. And from what I hear, nobody’s making a lot of money on these.'"
Read more in the full article, including what Carmack plans for Apple iPhone, here.


" I don’t carry a DS or a PSP around, but I’ve got my iPhone everywhere."
This is the reason I paid $100 for TomTom navigation app when a lot of people said you could get a dedicated device for the same price.
It's also why I hope to see a camera with "point and shoot" quality in a future iPhone.