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361 points ashitlerferad | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.22s | source
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dmonitor ◴[] No.42063608[source]
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Nintendo has had a trend for the past couple decades of releasing "sequel" consoles that are essentially a modernized version of the old one with extra features, compatible with everything that released on the predecessor.

With all three major console manufacturers prioritizing backwards compatibility, and the rise in PC gaming (universally backwards compatible), people are starting to catch on to the fact that old games don't "expire" after 10 years. I wouldn't be surprised if backwards compatibility just becomes the standard for all gaming consoles going forward.

Tangential, but I'm also interested in seeing how games that released on old consoles and are continued to be played, like Fortnite, will support aging hardware. I don't like that Epic can one day announce the game just no longer works on that console, rendering your purchases null and void until you upgrade your hardware, but I can't expect them to update that version of the game forever.

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inasio ◴[] No.42070675[source]
The Mac is a weird counter example here, the move to 64 bits resulted in many games with official Mac ports (e.g. most of Valve's: Half Life, Portal, etc) no longer being able to run on modern versions of OSX
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1. lloeki ◴[] No.42074333[source]
I'm certainly not blaming game makers in general because of the situation of Apple dropping 32bit Intel support, but I think Valve is a different story:

- They've been very diligent in the past about keeping their games up to date.

- Valve owning Steam means their flagship games are a strong signal about macOS support on Steam.

- If they really wanted, they could; they certainly have the resources to do so should they want to+; which means, they don't want to, which is a signal in the other direction: they stopped caring about macOS.

+ HL1 has a FOSS engine that apparently supports it, and more: https://github.com/FWGS/xash3d-fwgs/blob/master/Documentatio...