Todd Hollenshead, the ponytailed co-owner and CEO of id Software, drove that point home in the most recent episode of GameTrailers TV. He pegs the first-person shooter action adventure for a 2010 release at the earliest on the PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Not a big surprise, despite the fact that Rage was announced in the Summer of 2007. He'd given the game a very wide release window at last year's Quakecon, simply saying that the shooter would arrive earlier than 2011. id's also delivering new technology alongside the game, the bluntly named id Tech 5.

Hollenshead says that development on Rage—which is not a racing game, not quite an open world shooter—is "going well" with gameplay already having been tightened up.

The id CEO also drops extremely brief details on Doom 4, which may simply be called Doom, which Hollenshead says will feature demons, shooting and a guy. Tell us more, Todd!

Seriously, can you tell us a little bit more?

GameTrailers TV: Chapter 2: Doom, Quake & Rage? Oh my! [GameTrailers]

The id Tech 5 engine uses 'MegaTextures' - huge texture maps (up to 128000x128000 pixels) that require huge amounts of preprocessing to create.

id - and John Carmack in particular - are still very much pro-modding and have confirmed their plans to eventually open-source id Tech 5, but are unsure if there is a way around this technical limitation. Simply put, it is unlikely that any modder would have the computing resources that are required.

Just a thought - this sounds like an area where a project like Folding @ Home could be useful. Sure, cancer might not get cured as quick but, c'mon - MegaTextures!

Id Software's Willits: Rage Mods May Not Be Possible [Gamasutra]

It's too early to tell if the shrinking E3 has helped bolster id's own id-centric annual show QuakeCon. Usually id Software waits until the Saturday of the show to get official attendance numbers.

But Hollenshead is already sure that QuakeCon is the right way to host a gaming conference.

"I think we struck a balance of being vendor supported and still being in touch with the gamers," he said. "We had over 6,000 hours of volunteer time, that's like the polar opposite of E3,. which is all about business."

In fact id Software only officially showed up at E3 as a single announcement during the Electronic Arts press conference. They were there to tell the world that EA would be publishing their upcoming id Tech 5 game, Rage.

And even that had to be modified to fit in with what E3 and its attendees expect from the show.

"We were told you can't show this stuff because of these five reasons," Hollenshead said. "Last night (during QuakeCon) we had the bigger, better, more hardcore, not suitable for investor conference (announcement) for Rage and Doom."

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id's upcoming open-world shooter Rage, he told the assembled gamers, will look worse on the Xbox 360 because of storage issues.

I asked id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead about that this morning, now that the comment has had time to sink into gaming forums worldwide.

"That's a pretty gross over simplification," he said. And it was. In fact Carmack's and Hollenshead's views on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 as platforms are fairly complex. While Carmack has long said he thinks that the architecture of the Xbox 360 is better, it sounds like he and others at id Software feel that the PS3 has done a much better job of future proofing.

This issue with Rage? It's just the tip of the iceberg unless something is done.

The problem with Rage is two fold, Hollenshead tells me. First there is the economics of spreading a game across multiple discs. The more discs you use the higher production costs are.

"We have concerns (about the 360 version of Rage) because of the economics of the platform in terms of what it costs to go to multiple discs," Hollenshead said. "There is disc space issue on the 360, and if we cant find a clever way or compromise with Microsoft to address that issue... even though we feel the 360 has superior hardware, the size limitations may mean that we may not have as much texture density or resolution on the 360 version.

"Let me be clear, this is an open question, we have these tech issues and we are working with Microsoft to solve them."

And the issue isn't just about the game being too big, Hollenshead says that developers lose upwards of 2 gigs of space per a disc because of information Microsoft requires developers to put on the discs.

While allowing the game to be installed on the Xbox 360's harddrive may help, it actually wouldn't solve that problem, Hollenshead added.

While spit-balling ideas and possible solutions, Carmack even talked about the possibility of streaming some game data to Xbox 360s through the Live service, but that raises a litany of other issues, like how you would ensure that all of your gamers had a harddrive or broadband connections.

Ironically, early on Carmack was pretty clear on the fact that he felt the Playstation 3's cell technology was not the boon it was made out to be to developers.

"I know that John is pretty much brass tacks on these issues and before the PS3 was ever released he raised the same issues then as now," Hollenshead said. Sony "had a bunch of hardware engineers talking about theoretical power, but (Carmack) said 'yeah, this isn’t how software people work' and they said 'yeah, this is how they should work.'"

To date, Carmack still feels the architecture of the Playstation 3 doesn't deliver the power promised. But Hollenshead points out that there's no use crying over spilled milk.

"Complaining about that is sort of a worthless exercise at this point," he said. "The PS3 is what it is and it’s not going to change. You have to adapt. That’s what we have done with id tech 5."

One of the promises of id Software's new engine is that it will make cross-platform development a breeze. Something Hollenshead said is proven with Rage.

"Today we are saying that Rage may look better on the PS3 than the 360," he pointed out.

While id may not be fans of the Playstation 3's architecture, they are fans of how future proof the console seems to be.

"I think the blu-ray strategy and some of the other things they’ve done in terms how (the PS3) is positioned as a home entertainment device, shows that (Sony) is placing their bet on the PS3 as a marathon runner not a sprint and Microsoft was a little more focused on the short term goals."

Storage, and Microsoft's early insistence that the Xbox 360 wasn't going to run into issues with its DVD-based games, is a key win for Sony, he said.

"As soon as you start saying you have enough memory, you better hide and watch brother."

Check out our four -part interview to hear the three talk about the deal, id's new engine and new game, the future of Doom and other interesting tidbits.

Here it is, your first look at id's Rage using their new id Tech 5 engine.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, walked me through what to expect from the game and the Quake Con presentation earlier this afternoon.

"It's more than just a first-person shooter, we will show vehicles and racetracks, driving and racing elements," he said. "It is an action-oriented game but with a lot of adventure elements. It will be story driven, but you can also choose your own route to go through things."

The game's basic story is one centered around an oppressive "machine" you are rallying against. While the game, which id has been working on for more than 18 months, will still have indoor and outdoor shooter elements, it will also have plenty of racing including some road rage and the ability to mod and soup up your vehicle.

While Rage will be the first game to launch on id Tech 5, that doesn't mean that id has ruled out future versions of their exiting franchises hitting the new engine, Hollenshead said.

"We haven't made the decision that that's not going to happen, it just isn't internally." he said. "We've been helping out with Quake 4 and with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, but we wanted to do something new and different and get everyone's creative juices flowing. That's the impetus behind this. id is a studio that has the ability to launch new IPs and give people something new and not have to swim as much upstream."

While the fact that id Software is working on an entirely new franchise is exciting, the big news, Hollenshead said, is the engine the game is running on an engine that can allow a developer to create games for the Mac, the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 simultaneously by using identical media for all four platforms.

"Rage looks the same on all four platforms. It's all the same media, it's the same art, literally" he said. "It's damn hard to do that, but if you're a genius you'll figure out how to do it and that's what (Carmack) has done."

The brief tech demo of Rage shown at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference was running at 60hz on the Mac, something it will do on all platforms without any discernible difference, he said.

Typically when a game is being developed for multiple platforms, Hollenshead said, you have to lower the resolution for different platforms, or have less stuff in the environment going on. But with id Tech 5 there is no changes in any of the versions, Hollenshead said.

"That is huge, you don't have to have a second, third development team working on your different ports," he said. "For instance with a game based on a movie license, where you are tied to a specific launch date, previously you had your problem platform and you would put 150 people on it to get it to work. There's no need for that with id Tech 5 as long as you are prudent with your production management."

I asked Hollenshead about the whole furor surrounding Unreal's engine and accusations that it doesn't work as well with the Playstation 3. Hollenshead acknowledged that the PS3's architecture does have some interesting challenges, but said they figured them out. id brought on one of the top PS3 programmers in the world to help with the design of the engine from the beginning.

"From a architectural standpoint, (id Tech 5) was intended from the beginning to be a multiplatform engine," he said.

While id Software plans to eventually license their new cross-platform engine, that probably won't happen until closer to the end of this year.

GameTrailers just threw up this video from Steve Job's keynote yesterday showing John Carmack's demonstration of the new id Tech 5 game engine. Looks pretty amazing, though is it just me or did that outdoor area look an awful lot like a Motorstorm track? Brian Crecente