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Blizzard has announced that it is ending support for Windows XP and Windows Vista by October. Given that these operating systems were officially retired in 2009 and 2022, respectively, with no security or patch back up from Microsoft (although the company did patch Windows XP before this year), and the difficulty of continuing to test these operating systems, Blizzard'south decision makes sense. And in all honesty, information technology shouldn't bear upon many people.

Blizzard doesn't release the same level of details about its end users than Steam does, merely I suspect we can use one to get a feeling for the other. Steam, after all, also has a great many low-requirement titles that can be played on former hardware. Blizzard, meanwhile, has taken pains to ensure that it supports a broad range of hardware to ensure its games tin run on most annihilation.

Here's the statement from Blizzard:

Starting in October of this year, we will begin the process of ending support for Windows XP and Windows Vista in Globe of Warcraft, StarCraft Two, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm…

The games volition not run on these older operating systems once they are no longer supported, so nosotros encourage any players who are still using 1 of the older OSes to upgrade to a newer version.

Blizzard also notes information technology connected supporting these operating systems long after Microsoft canceled back up for them, but that there have been three major Bone updates since Vista, and the majority of customers accept stopped using XP and Vista. Usage of Windows XP 64-scrap and Vista 64-bit have manifestly fallen so depression, they've dropped off Steam'due south radar completely; it tracks the 10 most popular Windows versions, and Windows 8 is the everyman at 0.07% percent. If nosotros assume that 0.05 percent of users are still using XP 64-flake or Vista 64-fleck, that still merely adds upward to 0.93 percent of users on these 2 operating systems.

SteamSurveygraph

Steam Bone support

At present, in a game with a huge player base, like WoW, that could still add together up to 40,000-50,000 people affected, in total. But these are users that need to upgrade, period. Vista and XP take been ought of security back up for a very long time. Most machines that can run Vista tin can besides run Windows seven. And while there's Windows XP systems that definitely wouldn't qualify, if you're running one of them, you probably aren't trying to play modern WoW.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was role of a long-term push to motion all of Blizzard'due south games to 64-bit. Correct at present, multiple titles still back up 32-fleck and 64-bit, and eliminating that need would make the company'due south programming burden simpler. If it's going to go that road, the most probable side by side target would be Windows 8 32-bit, which ties Windows Vista's 32-scrap market share.

But for now, what we know is that Blizz is shutting down older operating systems on the basis of historic period, not just because of market share. And if that holds true, 32-bit back up volition continue to be included in its games for some time to come.

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