People are reluctant to change. And when it comes to programs and operating systems, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But if you’re one of the many who have stuck to Windows XP for your gaming, you’re going to be very unhappy with how 2019 is panning out.
A fair while ago, the world’s biggest gaming platform – Steam – announced that it would be cutting support for Windows XP and Windows Vista once the new year rolled in. It’s news that many might have missed, given that Valve aired their intentions all the way back in June. Vista and XP users who didn’t get the memo wouldn’t have noticed anything was up, either, since Valve specifically noted that Steam would continue operating on those OS’s until the end of the year.
But New Year’s Day has come and gone, and with it Steam support for the OS that introduced the world to those iconic fields of green. In the original announcement, Valve said its embedded version of Google Chrome was to blame:
The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 7 and above.
The change will be felt by many, because far too many people are still hanging onto Windows XP even amongst Steam users. Valve’s November survey found 0.11% users were still on the OS from 2001, a slight drop from October but still large enough to represent hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
Valve staffers revealed at Melbourne Games Week last October that the platform had reached 90 million active users, although Steam doesn’t provide numbers on the total amount of users. But there’s plenty of gamers on Windows XP (and the few poor souls still using Vista) that are in for a rude shock. On the bright side, Windows 7 still has a 32-bit OS. But if you can help it, do yourself a favour and upgrade. Please?