Carmack: iPhone a serious threat to other hand-helds

In an interview with Chris Morris for CNBC, id Software founder and chief programmer John Carmack said that Apple’s iPhone may be a serious threat to the hand-held gaming market - specifically Nintendo’s DS and DSi.

It’s a pretty interesting comment if you consider that earlier this week a prominent analyst (who I won’t name here) said that the iPhone - in the long term - will not be a viable game platform. Carmack sees it another way - and he should know, he’s been working on the platform and selling his games via Apple’s app store for quite some time.

Earlier this week it was announced that there are now 100,000 apps available on the iPhone, and while not all of those are games, a good portion of them are and many of them sell for anywhere from 99 cents to $9.99 USD.

“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 up. … I think the stars could align and it could start to eclipse those other systems in terms of unit sales.”

While Carmack is a PC guy through and through, he has fallen in love with developing games for the iPhone. He describes his time developing games on the system “fun.”

“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 told CNBC. “If a title could do well at $9.99, you could put [Nintendo] DS level development expenses into it.”

id Software has made it their goal to release one iPhone game every quarter over the next year. Most recently the company released an iPhone remake of the classic DOOM game called “Doom Classic.” iPhone versions of one of my favorite id Software titles - Quake - and a follow-up to the popular Doom RPG are also in the works. id Software is also planning on having its latest game, RAGE, ready to go for the iPhone when it is released in 2010.

Source: CNBC