Mobiles Tablets to Exceed Consoles in Gaming By 2025

In a recent interview with IndustryGamers, id Software's John Carmack stated that in just two years, cell phones will be more powerful than today 's gaming consoles.

"People have exaggerated the relative powers - the iPad2 is not more powerful than the 360. It's still a factor of a couple weaker," said Carmack. "But the fact that it's gotten that close that fast - that means that almost certainly, two years from now, there will be mobile devices more powerful than what we're doing on all these fabulous games on right now," added Carmack.

He explained the increasing popularity of mobile devices as due to their convenience, especially in playing games. For people accustomed to playing games in their free time, their phones and tablets give them access to a wide variety of games no matter where they are: school, office and even in transport. Of course, young people are a major part of this group; as trendsetters, they are likely to be at the forefront of any changes to the industry. Nevertheless, older players are finding these powerful devices capable of offering them a number of advantages, and mobile gaming is one of them.

Carmack was responsible for the popular Doom series; and while he did say that mobile and cloud computing are the future of online gaming, he did acknowledge that there are some "hard core people who want to sit down all weekend and stay in a position where they can get 20 hours of gameplay in."
However, many experts note that the current console makers would need to greatly improve their hardware's power if they hope to block the risk posed by the increase of social games and mobile gaming.