There's been quite a few bricks thrown in Microsoft's "window" lately by high profile game developers concerning Windows 8, including Valve's Gabe Newell, Blizzard's Rob Pardo and Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson. This week, id Software co-founder and head programmer John Carmack, the man behind the engines of the Doom and Quake games, and most recently Rage, made his thoughts known about Microsoft and Windows 8 known during his annual, and lengthy, keynote address at this year's QuakeCon event.
The entire 3 1/2 hour keynote has now been uploaded to YouTube and near the 2:47 hour mark, Carmack is asked about Windows 8 from an audience member. Carmack admits that the team at id worked on Windows XP "until the bitter end" and then transferred to Windows 7, skipping over Vista for the most part. He says that no one at id is working with Windows 8 at the moment, although he also says they should start testing with Windows 8 soon since the upcoming release of Doom 3 BFG Edition will be out close to the time that Windows 8 is launched in October.
Carmack stated that while he has more respect for Microsoft than others do, he has some doubts that the new touch-based UI in Windows 8 (formerly known as Metro) will be successful. That said, he also admits that he is "kind of excited" at seeing a Surface tablet.
Overall, Carmack said that he is "pretty darn happy" with working on Windows 7 and he would be happy if Windows 8 didn't actually exist, saying that there is nothing in Windows 8 that he is looking forward to.
The entire keynote is well worth watching as Carmack goes into detail on a ton of PC hardware and software topics, including his new obsession with the Oculus Rift VR hardware project. Oh, and there's still no word on when Doom 4 will be released; sorry.
Source: YouTube
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