"If that was indeed the case, perhaps Mojang should have just removed those systems from the compatibility list and continued ahead with more powerful platforms? Just an idea."
Yes, lets just leave people out of support for new content because of their lack of GPU capability. Pardon my french, but what a fuggin retarded idea. What next, you can only play the latest GTA V heist if you have a 2080 super or higher? CoD zombies will only work on AMD cards?
Here's an idea, if you want to make new graphics and are straining at the restrictions of your current game, WHY NOT MAKE ANOTHER GAME?!? Minecraft is complete, and its old. Make minecraft 2 or whatever. Given all the ways game developers screw over users with DRM, micro-transactions, artificial grinding, ece the last thing we need to say to them is "why not just limit your new features to people with more processing power and abandon your consumers?"
I don't see where this causes Minecraft to disappear on lower-end devices just because they wouldn't be able to receive a texture pack of all things. I wouldn't exactly call a texture pack a game changing feature (nevermind the 3rd party packs that have already existed on PC forever now). Besides, since its inception, there have been larger, more obvious disparities across all Minecraft-supported platforms with PC obviously having a huge advantage, (eg: world size). But unless you played the PC version you wouldn't know this (more on that later).
The Minecraft experience on lower-end devices won't change in the absence of this pack and those users can still go about playing it the way they've always have. But by not introducing the pack on platforms that CAN support it, they may have turned away veterans looking for a fresh look to keep them hanging around or newcomers that couldn't get past the graphics in the first place. (Again, this ignores 3rd party packs that already exist).
From a business perspective, this makes zero sense....at the same time I kinda understand. Catering a cosmetic upgrade to low-end hardware is ignoring the platform for which Minecraft was initially conceptualized on in the first place.... PC. So instead I think it more or less can be summed up with a statement like "Well considering PC has had 3rd party texture packs since forever and it turns out we can't do it on mobile/console platforms due to hardware limitations, it's not worth any more of our time investing into or talking about at this point". Now THAT makes sense, in which case they could have just said that IN THE FIRST PLACE! Not sure if it's Microsoft's lack of understanding the modding community or just a canned headline to get more users to play. Who knows. It's a little late to the table at this point.
From a consumer perspective, I'm sure you have heard of the term "PC master race". Do you really understand what that term means? To say it's the best platform and the rest are stripped down crap, ehhhh it's a little more technical than that. It takes understanding the development of games on the PC platform vs any other platform, and that's being able to express creative freedoms sans hardware limitations. Unlike consoles and mobile devices, PCs enjoy exponentially more headroom for game creation. Imagine a virtually limitless sandbox to do whatever you want with.
To introduce a PC-first game (such as Minecraft) to platforms with tighter hardware limitations, something probably has to go, otherwise it won't work. The user shouldn't realistically expect to have the same experience if they understand how hardware works. Which is why, in my opinion, aside from affordable upfront costs, console/mobile gaming exists in the first place. And I definitely think convenience plays an even larger factor.
Now that I've circled the world several times over, I guess I don't quite understand what your argument is here. You mentioned leaving people out due to lack of GPU capability. Keep in mind that this would have been a cosmetic upgrade on a PC-first game. The likelihood that it would have ever materialized on consoles and mobile platforms isn't entirely ruled out....just with whats currently out there now. And because of that they chose not to humor the idea any more. I mean at least for the sake of console/mobile gamers lets hope they'll re-engage down the road. As for your comparisions on other games I think you're comparing apples to oranges....GTA V utilizing at minimum a 2080 Super?? Come on that's a bit of a stretch, especially since GTA VI is already in the works, why would they waste their time. I got completely playable frames on a 5-6 year old 780Ti. And I'm not gonna attempt at humoring CoD only working on AMD cards.
Back to Minecraft, they aren't straining at any restrictions what so ever on PC....period. They said they were unhappy with how it performed across all platforms so they weren't going to do it at all. And shame on them from a business perspective to come to that conclusion but like I said it's probably because 3rd party texture packs have been around since the PC version dropped almost 10 years ago. I think we're both at the conclusion that it's complete/old and time to move on. Minecraft 2 is due, they've had plenty of time to collect ideas from other games and refine the originals shortcomings. I don't agree with your last comment one bit however. By expanding to more platforms than just PC they dramatically expanded their consumer base so your "why not just limit your new features to people with more processing power and abandon your consumers?" comment doesn't really add up. For one, no one has been abandoned, they can still play the game, nothing will change. Again, Minecraft is a PC-first game, the ones that miss out on feature updates are likely ones that bought the game on consoles or mobile devices instead of PC. In principle, the lesson here should be to educate yourselves and you'll be less prone to being let down.
