Talk:Game Updates/@comment-4738639-20130919172220/@comment-5786363-20130920153526

I'm not sure what you consider "frequent updates" - but OS and Hardware updates today are happening at about the same pace that they have been for the last 30 years I've been using computers. You can expect hardware shelf life to be 3-5 years, software support for within 2 full versions of the current incarnation (if we're on vers. 7 of software, I would expect support for no earlier than ver5 of the same software). Only major OSes tend to support longer than that.

While it's annoying to see perfectly good hardware (I happen to own a 3GS iPhone) no longer get support, I don't see this as anything out of the ordinary, more frequent than normal, or otherwise different from any other period in history. Hardware is made obsolete by two driving factors - software advances require the better hardware; the company wants to drive continued sales.

I think you're over reacting a little bit. You can keep obsolete hardware running for years after it's "dead", I had an old Mac from 1995 I kept running until 2006, but the longer it was around the more limited it's functions became. If I were moving forward from both a New User and Dev point of view, eventually I would stake that users with obsolete hardware are a marginallized portion of the user base, and it's easier to just stop supporting anachronistic users. Not to mention just easier ad even more responsible from a programmers POV - eventually all that old (dead) code gets in the way.