John Carmack Likes the PS4

While game developers were famously displeased by Sony’s choice of the unwieldy Cell architecture in the PS3, it looks like those tides have turned. For the PS4, Sony made the decision to cut out backwards compatibility from the get-go, in favor of moving a more approachable x86-based processor. Looking back at the challenges faces by the PS3, it’s hard to say that the move was a bad decision.

John Carmack, responsible for such titles as Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3D, has publicly praised Sony for the new system. Still bound by undoubtedly restrictive NDAs, Carmack isn’t able to say much, but he does call out Sony for making “wise engineering choices.”

I can’t speak freely about PS4, but now that some specs have been made public, I can say that Sony made wise engineering choices.

– John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) February 21, 2013

The move comes just a few days after Sony’s big press conference, where a number of details and upcoming titles for the new console were revealed. Notably, the console itself didn’t make an appearance, though Sony did stress that sharing and social were two very important themes they followed when designing the system. That philosophy, in fact, led to a share button getting front and center placement directly on the DualShock 4 controllers.