x86 gaming and running x86 Linux software are the exceptions.

> Starting with macOS 28, Rosetta 2 will be largely discontinued. Apple says that after that point, it “will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.”

https://9to5mac.com/2026/02/16/macos-26-4-will-notify-users-...

It's the Mac native x86 software that hasn't been updated in most of a decade that would be affected.

Is there an actual reason for it, apart from Apple hurrying devs along?

For the consumer, the benefits of backwards compatibility are obvious, but it’s sad that companies don’t see it as a selling point.

Well, we wouldn’t want anyone using their perfectly functional copy of Photoshop CS6 would we…

This would be very bad for Wine too. I think Wine has some answer to this, since Wine does run on Android, but I think it won’t make the current easy path that is just brew install wine and be done.

I get why Apple wants to remove it but it genuinely sucks. I can't imagine it costs them a lot to put it into maintenance mode and just support 20 years of macOS games and apps going forward. They want developers to fully move to ARM but older titles or software whose developers have moved on/passed will be lost to the sands of time.

Enjoy paying for your yearly Adobe subscription as your shrink wrap software won’t work.

I thought dosbox had its own x86 emulation layer so it should work fine on any arch?