| Conina said: More important than the end of hardware production (or the official announcement of the discontinuing) is the end of software support (IMHO). For example: even if the NES was discontinued in 2003... it wasn't supported from Nintendo after 1994: http://www.gamefaqs.com/company/1143-nintendo?platform=41&year=0®ion=0&devpub=0 The last Nintendo-published NES-games were Wario's Woods, Megaman 6 and Zoda's Revenge in 1994. PS2 got its last retail release in 2014: http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/02/playing-the-last-playstation-2-game/
Here is a good article about "swan song games": http://www.usgamer.net/articles/system-swansongs-the-last-games-released-on-the-greatest-consoles |
this.
the numbers are majorly flawed in the OP's list. if the console manufacturer was not making and publishing games for the system years and years forward then I don't think it really should count as 'running' then
I mean for gods sake if Nintendo essentially stopped manufacturing and developing for the NES in 1994 then its pretty absurd to take the 2003 or whatever number seriously for the death of the system. seems more like 1995 would be roughly accurate
the SNES figure also seems strange considering Nintendo did not support the system anywhere near that long
if these years are simply based on some stores having the systems for sale in random obscure parts of the world that late in the game then that doesn't really count as 'running'
I mean there could be a random giant store that overpurchased consoles and has them fo sale and will never run out but it doesn't magically mean the system is still technically active
