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Comment by milkandtang | Hacker News Reader

"Smartphones only become obsolete because the manufacturers design them to."

…and hardware getting faster, new sensors, etc. This line is getting pretty tired.

I agree. In 2011 when I got my smartphone, I remember mobile websites being simpler than they are today. My phone isn't as zippy, not because of planned obsolescence, rather the internet has become more demanding in two years. It's like PCs in the 90s. People used to complain about their PCs being obsolete in six months. You don't hear that any more because PCs are fast enough.

> It's like PCs in the 90s. People used to complain about their PCs being obsolete in six months. You don't hear that any more because PCs are fast enough.

Instead, you get people pining for the days when PCs were obsolete in six months, "before consoles dumbed down PC development."

There's just no pleasing some folks.

While I don't understand people who scream for ever-fancier graphics year after year, the previous generation of consoles did badly cripple PC game development for one reason: their lack of memory.

As a quick illustration, look at the size of levels in Thief 1/2 vs Thief 3. Or the seamless outdoor world of Morrowind, compared to the loading screens of Oblivion and Skyrim. With just a little bit more RAM (say 1GB instead of 512MB), developers could've done so much more.

Instead, we've had a whole generation of 3D games in cramped and/or lifeless worlds with simplistic gameplay. But hey, they're pretty. It wasn't always thus.

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