That mostly seemed to be video games (at least their developers complained the most), but I just had to wonder why they couldn't make their games 64-bit-ready with 15 years of warning.
Btw, 32-bit Windows binaries still run through WINE, just not 32-bit Mac binaries.
Games just don’t have a long enough tail to make this kind of effort worth it. They aren’t like business software where you try to keep people on the hook for years.
There’s little reason to keep updating a game past its first few post release patches. So you can assume most of their code bases have been untouched for years, were probably written by people who are no longer around, and haven’t been compilable by modern toolchains for a long time.
The tech debt is just insurmountable most of the time.
> but I just had to wonder why they couldn't make their games 64-bit-ready with 15 years of warning.
First off it wasn't just games. You can't run the old Microsoft Word anymore, for example. Why is this important? The old Word did everything I wanted. The new Word has fewer features than the old one. Also, I already owned the old one. Now I have to buy it again even though the old one was just fine.
For the games, I want to play my 20 year old games. Now I can't unless I fire up an old computer that is not upgraded and not on the internet (because it's horribly insecure). The companies that made those games don't exist anymore. And even if they did, it wouldn't be worth it for them to compile them again.
And on the iPhone I had a ton of awesome kids games. Those companies are also out of business, so again, I can't have the kids play those games unless I use an old insecure phone.
This is one area where Windows shines. For the most part you can still run 40 year old software on Windows.
Btw, 32-bit Windows binaries still run through WINE, just not 32-bit Mac binaries.