Microsoft is ready to pack up its board and card games once and for all. The software giant has published a post on Microsoft Answers announcing the retirement schedule for the old-school games bundled with now retired versions of Windows, including Backgammon, Checkers, Spades, Hearts, Reversi and MSN Go.
“Hello, Microsoft Internet Games players,” the post begins. “It is with heavy hearts that we have made the difficult decision that the following games will no longer be supported,” it continues before listing the games and the version of Windows impacted.
Windows XP and ME users will be losing the most, with everything except MSN Go included. Windows 7 players, on the other hand, will just see the end of Backgammon, Checkers, Spades and MSN Go, and they also see a stay of execution into next year. While games for XP and ME will cease to work on July 31, Windows 7’s game services will stay online until January 22 2020.
“We truly appreciate all the time and passion you’ve put into Microsoft Internet Games. This has been a great community,” the blog post continues. “However, the time has come for us, along with our hardware and software partners, to invest our resources towards more recent technologies so that we can continue to deliver great new experiences.”
There are bound to be web-based equivalents to these games, so you might not be completely stuck if you’re determined to play something on an older PC. Microsoft would no doubt prefer that you upgrade to a Windows 10 system and play something from its own app store, though. As it is, it’s almost surprising that support didn’t end earlier.
