Let’s say you get home from work or class, you make some dinner, and sit down to play an hour or so of Game 2: The Game. You’re cool with that; you have no reason to shell out $500 to buy another video game system this autumn. But, oh! Wait! What’s this? John Carmack seems to think that, despite the fact that there’s nothing wrong with this generation of consoles just yet, someone may announce a new video game system “earlier rather than later.”

The id Software gentleman said as much to CD-Action, a Polish site. The deal is, Carmarck thinks someone—let’s call this someone “Sony”—doesn’t want the competition to get the same one-year jump on it again. (The Xbox 360 came out fall, 2005, while the PS3 came out fall, 2006.) And given how lackluster the PS3 has been, perhaps Sony doesn’t want to deal with another generation being beaten up by Microsoft.

Of course, since I own stock in neither company, I’m perfectly content to watch them mercilessly slug it out.

Carmack also said that there’s a good chance that the next consoles may well skip out on physical media entirely in favor of an all-download deal-o, like the PSP Go.