Lord British may have reached for the stars - and given us a cryptic message in space runes - but to do so he had to splurge millions of his hard earned Gold and train for months with Russian cosmonauts. If another Gaming Legend has his way, however, taking in the view from orbit might become a little easier - if slightly crazier looking.

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Id Software's John Carmack spends his free time playing Nintendo games with his son. They're currently making their way through Super Paper Mario. And when not playing that, they have a go at Mario Kart DS. So does that mean Carmack is keen on, say, Wii development? According to Carmack:

The Wii is one of those markets where Nintendo owns both the hardware and the software, but part of that is because they make such damn good products. So it's the toughest platform for third party developers. We don't have a software or content base ideally suited for it. So it doesn't really play to our strengths and we're pretty busy with other stuff right now. I'm thrilled that Nintendo has had this kind of success because they took some risky bets, and it's always nice some bold thinking pay off for them. But I don't think we'll be on the platform.

At least he's honest!

Carmack on Doom, Rage, EA and More [Tom's Games via Go Nintendo]

When you say "Apple", gaming is probably the last thing that comes to mind here. And id's John Carmack thinks he knows why:

The truth is Steve Jobs doesn't care about games. This is going to be one of those things that I say something in an interview and it gets fed back to him and I'm on his shithead list for a while on that, until he needs me to do something else there. But I think that that's my general opinion. He's not a gamer... It's difficult to ask somebody to get behind something they don't really believe in. I mean obviously he believes in the music and the iTunes and that whole side of things, and the media side of things, and he gets it and he pushes it and they do wonderful things with that, but he's not a gamer. That's just the bottom line about it.

That doesn't mean that Carmack is down on the iPhone or anything as a gaming platform, he just doesn't think gaming is priority numero uno for Jobs. So there you have it. John Carmack thinks Steve Jobs isn't a gamer. Who doesn't agree with that?

"Steve Jobs doesn't care about games" [Eurogamer via VG247] [Pic]

A Quake-based MMO from id? Yeah, that won't be happening anytime soon. In an interview with Shacknews, John Carmack made it clear there are no racing hearts over massively multiplayer titles at the company, even though it was offered a pretty penny to have a crack:

Saying that id had passed on several offers of "good money" to develop a Quake MMO, Carmack added that the company would not be attempting a similar project anytime soon.

"id has no interest in MMO development", said Carmack, who added that while he is familiar with the technology, he is also "fully cognisant" of the challenges and risks of creating a game in the genre.

Publishers Chase Quake MMO, Offers Rejected by id [Shacknews]

During the opening address of QuakeCon earlier today, John Carmack wasn't just happy he was wearing his best pair of on-stage shorts. He was also happy with this new Rage trailer, finally answering our months-long pondering as to what Motorstorm would look like if it had less driving, more shooting in a post-apocalyptic desert setting.

The only way to get your hands on id Software's Rage and Doom 4 will be through traditional means, according to a report from Maximum PC. The id co-founder said at today's QuakeCon keynote that it would shy away from digital distribution with its next two id Tech 5-powered titles. An odd move, considering EA is publishing Rage and has its own digital distribution method, not to mention the availability of id's catalogue through its official web store and Steam.

Maximum PC also reports that the Xbox 360 version of Rage may wind up shipping on up to three DVDs — or suffer some serious compression compared to the Blu-ray version — a move that could cost millions in per-disc royalty fees. And think of the paper sleeve costs!

QuakeCon 08: No Digital Distribution for Rage or Doom 4; Rage will be on Multiple DVDs for Xbox 360 [Maximum PC]

The PC hasn't had a great time in the last few years. The latest generation of Xbox and Playstation consoles can rival, and in some cases exceed, its graphics and online capabilities, while the Wii is innovating with peripherals in ways manufacturers such as Razor and Belkin can only dream about.

id Software's John Carmack hasn't given up on the old girl, not yet. He's voiced his opinion of the current state of the platform before, and in a new interview with Shacknews, he reinforces his view:

Yeah, I think that the PC definitely can't.. we can't go on making PC games like we used to. The combination of the dominance of the consoles, as far as market forces there, and piracy.. the traditional AAA, media-heavy boxed game that sells for a bunch of money, and goes out on the PC for a single player experience--it's just not happening. Even if we look at something that had such a push like Crysis, it didn't really do all that well.

id Software's John Carmack and Marty Stratton Talk Quake Live, PC Gaming, and More [Shacknews]

I love Carmack smack-talk. Or Carmack-talk, if I was to unsuccessfully attempt wittiness. Not only is it honest, but often prophetic. I'm not sure the following comment about Crysis will prove itself in the future, but it's good to know the veteran coder still "has game", as the twelve year-old who keeps kicking the crap out of my car would say:

But in terms of first-person shooters, if you look at something like Crysis and say that's the height of what the PC market can manage, I don't think that's necessarily that exciting of a direction for the PC to be going in the future. With Quake Live, we hope that there's an opportunity for people who've never played shooters to give this a try, and with that, the potential of actually growing the PC gaming market.

Is there too much of a "cutting edge" focus on PC games development? Should developers turn their efforts to casual markets and the other advantages of the personal computer? Have your say.

Carmack free Quake [GamesRadar, via Blue's News]

Even though his presence in the industry has declined somewhat since the release of Doom 3, and his passions have shifted from polygons and frame buffers to mobile phones and space rockets, it's always pure win reading interviews with id's John Carmack. Mention any topic and the man has something compelling to say.

PC Perspective managed to get a hold of the programming guru and quiz him on the latest happenings in the industry, including the recent purchase of AGEIA by NVIDIA and Intel's consuming of Offset Software and its luscious graphics engine and physics middleware vendor Havok.

Early on in the piece Carmack gives ray tracing a tongue lashing and fortifies his opinion on rasterisation, the dominant form of 3D rendering. According to Carmack, the argument that the former scales better than the latter is "ridiculous". He even throws in a chunk of info on voxels, which our good friend Ken Silverman loves to bits.

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In a comment filed to Slashdot, id co-founder John Carmack says that his company is looking at iPhone development. Sega's on board, as are EA and Gameloft, and it appears we may be seeing an accelerometer controlled Orcs & Elves if Carmack has his way. Although Carmack apparently didn't have nice things to say about iPod dev tools, pissing of Steve Jobs, he was up on iTunes distribution and its 70% royalty rate.

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