id Software's Tim Willets fires back with "mouse is still best"

Microsoft Kinect boss: No-one plays shooters on PC

Microsoft Kinect creator Kudo Tsunoda claimed that "it’s all about the console" in an interview with Game Informer.

Tsunoda attempted to equate the Xbox 360 motion control system Kinect with shooters being ported from the PC to consoles. "People said the same things that they are saying now about Kinect – ‘It’s never going to be responsive enough to do this’,” said Tsunoda.

"Halo did an awesome job of building a first-person shooter exclusively for the console, and now hardly anyone plays first person shooters on the PC anymore. It’s all about the console."

First person shooter legends id Software, responsibility for Doom and Quake, unsurprisingly disagreed with creative director Tim Willets telling Eurogramer that "The PC is still a very viable platform for not only FPS games but also all other genres."

"In my opinion the PC will always be the core of the gaming industry – it is the timeless stable platform that as developers we will always be able to rely on," said Willits.

Possibly taking a swipe at Microsoft by proxy for the early canning of the Xbox platform, Willets went ont to say that unlike consoles the PC platform doesn’t disappear because "one company decided to make a new version."

Willets pointed out the input controllers on a PC such as mouse and keyboard are responsive with "many more choices and options" and also said that social networking on the PC made it easier for PC gamers to play with friends than any of the consoles, a claim which Microsoft might dispute with the Xbox Live service.

"Plus, as any hardcore FPS gamer will tell you, the mouse is still the best device for aiming," said Willets. id has a new PC gaming in the development called Rage, due towards the end of 2011 or "when it’s done" as the company famously says.

Steam’s statistics show that up to 70,000 Steam users are playing games like Counter-Strike: Source and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at the daily peaks and recently launched Sid Meier’s Civilization V has also reached nearly 40,000 online players simultaneously.

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