Stardock: Lack of DirectX 10 for XP has been catastrophic

DirectX 9 an immense factor in holding back PC development, says CEO

Strategy games have struggled in the last few years because of Microsoft’s “catastrophic” decision not to implement DirectX 10 on Windows XP as a standard, says the CEO of Stardock
In the company’s 2012 customer report, Brad Wardell said that although a number of great titles had been released, innovation in the genre had been diminishing over the last few years.

He explained that the fault however was not on developers, but on the fact that they had been stuck on DirectX9 and 2gb of memory for the past decade, holding back PC development “immensely”.
Wardell added that although first-person shooters hadn’t suffered particularly, not giving DirectX 10 to Windows XP users meant RPGs as well as strategy games had been hit hard.
“For strategy gamers, the last few years have been a mixed blessing,” he said.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...n-catastrophic