id Shows Off Rage on an iPhone 4, Running Strong at 60fps

Despite Sony and Nintendo still claiming plenty of space in the mobile gaming market, there's a real threat from Apple. No, not by the Cupertino-based company directly (outside of manufacturing the device, of course), but from the video game developers out there who are mad geniuses enough to do things like id Software's John Carmack has done. Through some kind of incantation of Black Magick, he has squeeezed id's Rage title onto the iPhone 4, and it's running at 60fps.

A small part of us, perhaps the part that wants to hold on to some kind of rationale for the real world, wants to think that this is some kind of cruel joke, but it isn't. In fact, Carmack believes that with this showcase, he's actually shown that original Xbox titles, and PS2 titles for that matter, have been blown out of the water. And he could very well be right. Because not only is the title running at a ridiculous amount of frames per second, but it's also featuring MegaTextures, which just goes out of its way to make the game look amazing.

According to Carmack, while they were doing some test runs for some kind of variation for the Wii, someone had the mad idea to make Rage work on the iPhone. And, sure enough, they got it to work flawlessly — and due to the fact that they're starting ahead in the development cycle, thanks to that whole "mad idea," it won't take the id team four years to make Rage for the iPhone. In fact, the first title is actually going to come out before the PC/console version — with a second title set to launch during that time.

And while the showcased the game on an iPhone 4, Carmack noted that the game will run on an iPhone 3GS, but it looks the best showing off on the iPad. What's probably best of all, though, is the fact that the developers have no intention of hiking up the price for Rage, and intend to have it be competitively priced within the App Store, when it does launch. And, if you're an Android fan, Carmack is looking at the platform, but he won't think about making a game for it for at least another six months. Better late than never, right?

[via Joystiq]