Bells and whistles. In some cases, that’s all that separates the (in tech years) eons-old Windows XP from spry upstarts like Windows 7 and, to a lesser extent, Windows Vista. But – like it or not – the bell may be tolling for Windows XP. At least, if you’re a gamer, anyway. Fittingly enough, Just Cause 2, a game about revolutions and, er, parachuting, is leading the charge.

“There is no XP support for Just Cause 2. This is because the game has been written to take advantage of the extra performance offered by Direct X10 and sadly Windows XP does not support that application,” Square Enix Community Manager Mike Oldman told VE3D.

Granted, games like Halo 2 and Shadowrun also gave the cold shoulder to XP for similar reasons, but that was before we were two Windows OSes removed from XP’s heyday. Maybe it’s finally time to move on and let people see what DirectX 10/11 can really do. So, you know, basically the opposite of Halo 2 and Shadowrun.

Just Cause 2 is out on March 23, in case you're interested. Check out the full, not-afraid-to-stick-their-tongues-out-at Windows XP specs for the game through the link.

Announced earlier this week, Final Fantasy XIV is an MMO, and – as such – will be coming to the PC. However, even though the game shares a number of cosmetic genes with direct predecessor Final Fantasy XI, the two games’ developers insist that they, like two adolescent identical twins, are “completely different.”
     
"FFXIV is completely different from FFXI and as such, there won’t be any porting over of characters from FFXI to FFXIV, even though the character design is similar. We will not be using the PlayOnline system but a new design," said Producer Hiromichi Tanaka.

And while we’re certainly glad that we’ll no longer have to jump through PlayOnline’s many flaming, crocodile-moat-surrounded hoops in order to play FFXIV, Tanaka didn’t exactly explain how the game is different from FFXI. That’s where Director Nobuaki Komoto came in.

“The game systems will be different. FFXIV will have new in-game systems for character development as well as an expanded job system. It is quite different from FFXI. Many features of FFXI will be improved upon. We want to bring content for solo players and casual players as well as large party play from the beginning of the game,” he explained.
 
Tanaka also added that FFXIV will have plenty of content for “those that just want to play 40 minutes a day and content for those that wish to play all day.”

Will it have content for people who want to play Star Wars: The Old Republic all day, though? Yeah, that might be a bit of a sticking point for us.