Carmack: "So much you can still do" with PS3, Xbox 360

Id Software founder turned Oculus Rift CTO John Carmack is concerned that the rush to embrace new generation hardware has left the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360's potential wasted.

Speaking with Wired, Carmack said he still "struggles" with the decision to make games for new systems or continue exploring the potential of odler hardware.

"There’s so much you can still do on the previous console generation. The 360 and PS3 are far from tapped out in terms of what a developer could do with them, but the whole world’s gonna move over towards next-gen and high-end PCs and all these other things," he said.

"Part of me still frets a little bit about that, where just as you fully understand a previous generation, you have to put it away to kind of surf forward on the tidal wave of technology that’s always moving."

But the tech guru also acknowledged that this concern has been raised every generation, and that he now recognises some of his reluctance as a soon-to-be nostalgic fondness for hardware he's already comfortable with.

"Data has shown over the decades that that’s usually not as important as you think it is," he said.

"Although I keep making new arguments where now we can say that we’re past the knee of the cost-benefit curve in terms of what we get with graphics, and people are saying that with the next-gen consoles, that okay, they look better but they don’t look nearly as much better as the previous generation. So does that mean people will stay happier with the current things? And I could make that argument with a straight face and play for it, but it’s probably going to be wrong," he added.