Believes it will be 'earlier rather than later'.

ps3 final hardware 11 - Carmack: Sony likely to be first with...

id Software co-founder John Carmack believes the next hardware cycle will begin “earlier rather than later” and that it will be Sony who gets to the market first.

“The whole jockeying for who's going to release the first next-gen console is very interesting and pretty divorced from the technical side of things,” Carmack told CD-Action.

“Whether Sony wants to jump the gun to prevent the same sort of 360 lag from happening to them again seems likely.

“As developers, we would really like to see this generation stretch as long as possible. We'd like to see it be quite a few more years before the next-gen consoles comes out, but I suspect one will end up shipping something earlier rather than later.”

Carmack also chipped in on the debate over digital distribution, revealing that he believes one of the consoles in the next generation will ship without the capacity for optical media.

“I think there's a decent chance that one of the next-gen consoles will be without optical media,” said Carmack. “The uptake rates of people who have broadband connects surprised everyone this generation. It's higher than what the core publishers and even the first party people expected.”

Via MCV