Microsoft has only just laid Windows XP to rest and placed flowers on its grave with a final update this Tuesday… However mere hours later it put on its sturdiest clogs and did a gleeeful can-can on top of XP's grave in the form of the 'Escape from XP' free browser based game.
Escape from XP features a sports jacket and slacks clad Windows XP assassin with a machine gun. Playing this hero you are pitted against marauding Windows XP icons such as standard XP trash cans, My Computer icons, IE6 icons and even the evil genius of Clippy. In the game you defend a platform against these XP apparitions using the WASD keys for moving in four directions and the cursor keys to direct your machinegun fire.
The game is hosted on the Modern.ie website, as a tool to demonstrate the capabilities of the 'modern browser'. This doesn't just include the latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, as the game seems perfectly happy to run in Firefox or Chrome. The game does play fast and fluid in the browser, but considering the timing of its release it is probably hoped to produce a viral hit to help prod people away from the old XP OS.
We have reported upon previous Microsoft initiatives to change the in-use Windows OS version proportions towards its newer OSes. The firm has undertaken a marketing pincer movement to both push people away from XP and encourage adoption of newer OSes like Windows 8.X. Windows XP users have also been warned of upcoming dangers and pestered to upgrade via new stories and even system pop-up messages.
In related news there is already evidence that the turning off of support for Windows XP has resulted in a "slowing PC industry bleed."
