14 DAY TRIAL // Today, April 8, marks the end of support for the Windows XP operating system, after more than 12 years since its original release, and it also marks the end of a gaming phenomenon.
Windows XP came out back in 2001, when the PS2 was already on the market and the PC's situation was shaky, to say the least.
Microsoft’s operating system, however, proved to be a great boost for the PC platform, gaining widespread adoption and coming with plenty of performance improvements that made even old hardware be able to run recent and intensive games.
Over the years, the platform became the best choice for PC gaming and, thanks to Microsoft's constant updating of the DirectX API to 9.0c, games were looking better than ever. Couple this with the rise of digital distribution platforms like Steam, and the operating system left a meaningful mark on PC gaming as a whole.
Even now, as XP is reaching its end of life, the Steam Stats page still shows that around 6% of its users use the operating system, either in 32-bit or 64-bit variations.
Sure, there were problems along the way with the OS, especially when it came to its updates or service packs, but, in the end, it was the system on which a lot of people experienced PC gaming for a long time.