John Carmack took the stage today at Oculus Connect to talk about how developers are not doing a good job with developing for VR. Carmack told the audience of developers that the content industry is generally lazy, waiting for powerful hardware. but the mainstream doesn’t rely on powerful expensive CPUs.
“I would rather have magic software over magic hardware,” said Carmack, referring to how many game developers always look toward the next generation GPU from AMD or Nvidia, but in fact should work on tuning their software and games for lower-end hardware.
To push virtual reality into the mainstream, and then have the high-end put more resources to the platform, Carmack indicated that the industry needs to focus more on mainstream hardware, specifically mobile. This strategy, said Carmack, allows the entire industry to move forward since mobile is where the rest of the tech industry is focused.
Carmack said that although the phone doesn’t have the raw power of a desktop, it forces developers to be better programmers, and that if they don’t have the skills that he has, to “go out and find it.”
“The power of the PC will never get to the mobile platform,” Carmack said, indicating that the PC will remain the dominant gaming platform, but it needs to come second to mobile.