Carmack keynote at QuakeCon 09

A complete video of this year's keynote can be found at http://www.quakeunity.com/file=2919

Carmack considers cloud computing an interesting way forward for different game types. He thinks that a reduction of the latency to 50ms is achievable. However, he believes that the current internet infrastructure still needs a lot of work before fast-paced "twitchy" shooters like Quake are possible.

Two live blogging reports:

Oh boy, someone's asking about Cloud Computing.
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Carmack says it's "wonderful."
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Talking about how parallel processing is where it's at now.
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But there are physical limits.
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Especially in terms of how much power computers/consoles are drawing.
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Cloud Computing prevents server-side cheating.
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Still some serious disadvantages when it comes to fast-twitch games like Quake, though.
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With 50 millisecond lag, though, anything's possible.
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Some games even have that much lag internally.
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Carmack thinks Cloud Computing could be a significant force in a few years -- perhaps even a decade.

http://www.vg247.com/2009/08/13/quakecon-press-conference-liveblog-today-at-930pm-bst/

Question about cloud computing and onlive
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Carmack says cloud computing is wonderful
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But carmack says about cloud computing for gaming that you start winding up coming up against power limits
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So says common computing resources may be helpful. Because the power bricks on something like a 360 is showing a looming power problem
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Latency is the killer, carmack says
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Says the sims would work with a cloud setup
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But thinks twitch gaming will be the last kind of game that could work
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Says that cloud computing would limit cheating
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Thinks you could get games down to 50 millisecond lags as they're streamed via cloud computing
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Wouldn't be shocked if in ten years cloud computing is a significant paradigm for some kinds of games

http://kotaku.com/5336589/the-john-carmack-keynote-liveblogging-quakecon

On onlive type services..latency the issue, but a lot more classes of games than people think, could be feasible, example being "The Sims", twitch games like Quake would be the hardest..upside is client side cheating vanishes. Key will be optimizing networks stacks for reasonable latency. Definitely thinks its not a crazy idea and has very interesting potential.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=54817