In some ways it was surprising they even lasted this long. Apart from an android version, I can’t remember much changing since Winamp 5 came out in 2003. Was there even a full time winamp development team? Was it like, one intern surfing reddit?

Like many nerds out there winamp was the first mp3 player I used, back around 1999ish. I have to admit these days I mostly use itunes and spotify. Still, I’ve hung onto Winamp as a means of playing my vast collection of gaming music and remixes. For one thing, I simply wanted a different player for that stuff, so as to keep the collection wholly separate from other music, and not mix together the hundreds of artists, not to mention mp3s with no id tags.

Also though, winamp was a player of choice for retro game music due to support for many less common or pre-mp3 formats. For example it will play mod files, that format built out of samples that was quite popular in the early 90s. Also with plugins it can play chiptunes taken straight from old 8 and 16-bit console games. (I still like to listen to Super Castlevania IV and Super Metroid soundtracks when unwinding).

Of course, it’s not like the winamp software will now suddenly stop working. Still, it feels like the end of an era somehow, even if the golden days were already long past. I’d be interested to hear what other desktop media players (that aren’t iTunes) people use, and if any have similar flexibility.