Strategy games have been hurt badly due to Microsoft’s decision to not support Windows XP with Direct X 10. The API first originally was found in Windows Vista but Windows XP was only Direct X 9 which restricted RAM to 2GB for games.

Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, blamed Microsoft for holding back the genre due to that move.

“There have been some great titles released but the innovation in strategy games has been diminishing. This is not the result of a lack of game design or inventive thinking. The problem stems from a catastrophic decision made at Microsoft: not giving DirectX 10 to Windows XP users,” he said.

“As a corollary, Microsoft continuing to sell 32-bit versions of Windows well after the hardware stopped being natively 32-bit has held back PC game development immensely. Game developers have been stuck with DirectX 9 and 2GB of memory for the past decade. While this hasn’t harmed first person shooters (they only have to manage a handful of objects at once), it has been poisonous to other genres.

“Next time you’re playing an RPG in first person with no party you can refer to DirectX 9 and 2GB of memory as a big reason for that.”

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Via Develop.