“Never before in the history of the Microsoft Windows operating system has there been a forced hardware migration requirement. And this cannot be solved by swapping out a graphics card. It requires a CPU upgrade for over 100 million gamers, which, in turn, requires a motherboard upgrade and most likely RAM as well,” said Ted Pollak, JPR’s senior analyst of game tech.
Of course, it can also be solved by switching from Windows to Linux. No hardware upgrades necessary unless some existing components lack Linux drivers, and those can often be upgraded individually instead of replacing the entire PC.
The main exception is for competitive games using certain anti-cheat systems that are incompatible with Linux. People who want to play those games will probably have to go the expensive route.