PC sales decline 14%

Arakazi

As the title says, PC sales have declined rapidly. Tablets and other small devices have been blamed as well as the percieved failure of windows 8, which has seemed to of confused people. Other point to the fact that a two or three year old computer will do the job just fine and are not rushing out to buy another one.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24065413#.UWg28cqoWyA

 

Methios

More people know how to build computers themselves as well and you will pay hell of a lot less by doing so for the same parts.

Skuz

This is true but this is predominantly related to the business market, if it were possible to "split-out" business sales from home-user sales the numbers would be more relevant to the gaming community.

Windows 8 made little to no impact upon the business world, this is quite common cycle actually as large businesses tend to bulk-buy during major hardware upgrades & often skip a few generations of OS/hardware iterations.

Given the economic climate though suppressed PC sales is hardly surprising, businesses are not yet on the tablet bandwagon in earnest so those numbers aren't subject to their type of buying cycle.

tom_gore

At the same time, the sales of custom built gaming PCs and components continues to increase year after year. Might take a short dip when the new consoles come out, but probably will start increasing in a couple of years again.

All the declining PC sales tell us is that people are using alternate methods for their everyday surfing needs and office work. PC gaming is still growing and I don't think it's going away anytime soon.

 

Arakazi

I pretty much agree with most. I built my own PC after getting my fingers burnt a few times, and I will probably not buy another PC from the likes of alienware or dell or whoever. But at the same time I'm using my PC less and less. With my X-Box and PS3 I can access videos and media from the likes of Netflix, Crunchyroll and youtube. From my mobile i get twitter and FB and so on as well as get my news and play angrybirds. These are all things I would used my PC for in the past. But I still prefer my games on PC and I still do a lot of my work on PC. But a lot of PC games are ported from consoles instead of the other way around. The majority of games that are exclusive to the PC are RTS and indie games along with the MMOS.

Kyleran

Originally posted by Skuz

This is true but this is predominantly related to the business market, if it were possible to "split-out" business sales from home-user sales the numbers would be more relevant to the gaming community.

Windows 8 made little to no impact upon the business world, this is quite common cycle actually as large businesses tend to bulk-buy during major hardware upgrades & often skip a few generations of OS/hardware iterations.

Given the economic climate though suppressed PC sales is hardly surprising, businesses are not yet on the tablet bandwagon in earnest so those numbers aren't subject to their type of buying cycle.

I work for a very large corporation that used to buy hundreds of thousands of PC's regularly for all of it's users.  But due to the expense of maintaining themt they've largely transitioned over to Citrix VDI with CIsco thin client boxes, keeping laptops/desktops for specialized users such as Development and QA.

So assuming this is going on all over the industry, there are far fewer PC's being purchased.  Couple that with the fact that now days tablets/phones can do many of the same tasks that a large number of personal computer user did on them, and you can see why the numbers continue to shrink.

Vunak23

Of course PC sales are going to decline... What did they think they would be immune to the economic crysis? When there are people struggling to find a job I doubt their first priority is going to be a brand new computer. 

Not to mention Win8 is horrible, and a lot of people can get their computing needs out of phones and tablets now. 

But there will always be a market for PCs. I think consoles will end up seeing a bigger decline with the next systems unless they can pull off some seriously amazing shit. 

ThomasN7

With the economy the way it is people are going with the cheaper alternative to gaming. Consoles and tablets offer that and yes Windows 8 is utter crap.

Arakazi

Will it have a knock on effect in regards to CPU prices or development and the like?

Wicoa

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Skuz

This is true but this is predominantly related to the business market, if it were possible to "split-out" business sales from home-user sales the numbers would be more relevant to the gaming community.

Windows 8 made little to no impact upon the business world, this is quite common cycle actually as large businesses tend to bulk-buy during major hardware upgrades & often skip a few generations of OS/hardware iterations.

Given the economic climate though suppressed PC sales is hardly surprising, businesses are not yet on the tablet bandwagon in earnest so those numbers aren't subject to their type of buying cycle.

I work for a very large corporation that used to buy hundreds of thousands of PC's regularly for all of it's users.  But due to the expense of maintaining themt they've largely transitioned over to Citrix VDI with CIsco thin client boxes, keeping laptops/desktops for specialized users such as Development and QA.

So assuming this is going on all over the industry, there are far fewer PC's being purchased.  Couple that with the fact that now days tablets/phones can do many of the same tasks that a large number of personal computer user did on them, and you can see why the numbers continue to shrink.

Yeh pretty much this. You now do not need to own a PC in order to carry out work and day to day tasks, even shopping online has come to mobile phones.  Only people who will need a desktop soon will pretty much be people like me!

Isturi

If it means I can buy a beast game machine for rock bottom price then I welcome this kind of news.

PC still has bout 10 year life span. After that a least we wont have to worrie bout upgrades anymore or getting the best chip or GFX card. On the flip side companies that out making money from making PC or PC componets will be racing to give us either crap products before the finial nail or and hopefuly some very nice products. Guess time will tell.

moosecatlol

Who even buys pre-builts these days?

jdnewell

People dont need computers to do most internet related things.

Take my wife for instance. She does not game or use a PC at home for anything related to work. On the Ipad & phone she can do every thing she needs to do and more. Web surfing, online shopping, email, social media, media streaming & playback, books, magazines, ect. If not for me gaming and using my PC for work related stuff at home we would not even need a PC at all.

I will probably always own a PC of some kind. But the average joe who chats on twitter / facebook and checks emails the PC is simply not needed. Many companies are also using tablets to great effect instead of PCs. The days of needing a PC for everything internet related is over.

I have never been a huge fan of Apple products. I started using an Ipad for work and bringing it with me when I call on my accounts. Now I would have a hard time with out it related to work. I bring my laptop and my ipad with me. 90% of the time the laptop stays in the case and the ipad goes with me into the account.

Classicstar

With alot of enthausiasme i build a rig in 2009 with newly released win7 and dx11 desktops with my AMD 5870 gpu.

A fine desktop i build myself and OC and still after 4 years doing fine.

Im bit of freake and buoght in may 2012 a ivy bridge highend rig also build myself and so i got ssd(9 sec to desktop) and USB3 for first time upgrade worth upgrading with my overclock of cpu/gpu im very pleased with this rig that handle crysis3 superbly on highest settings.

But with still for most part whole game business in DX9 games and not seeing this changed before end of 2014 and staying on win7 im not gonne replace anytime soon to haswell becouse you need again new MB with socket 1150 and seems with OC same as ivy not much change so with prices these days higher then in past im happy with my rig now.

Seems in future desktops gone and nomore windows maybe tablet on android in ultra HD who knows:)

TheKraut

Buy a pre built PC at retail....or build one to my specs that is multiple times better/faster for less...

Not much of a decision once you learn that building a PC from a barebones kit is not very difficult.

Roxtarr

The numbers only account for people who were buying a computer as an email and facebook machine. They are using smartphones and tablets ofr that. PC's aren't going anywhere for people who actually need them.

meadmoon

Originally posted by Wicoa

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Skuz

This is true but this is predominantly related to the business market, if it were possible to "split-out" business sales from home-user sales the numbers would be more relevant to the gaming community.

Windows 8 made little to no impact upon the business world, this is quite common cycle actually as large businesses tend to bulk-buy during major hardware upgrades & often skip a few generations of OS/hardware iterations.

Given the economic climate though suppressed PC sales is hardly surprising, businesses are not yet on the tablet bandwagon in earnest so those numbers aren't subject to their type of buying cycle.

I work for a very large corporation that used to buy hundreds of thousands of PC's regularly for all of it's users.  But due to the expense of maintaining themt they've largely transitioned over to Citrix VDI with CIsco thin client boxes, keeping laptops/desktops for specialized users such as Development and QA.

So assuming this is going on all over the industry, there are far fewer PC's being purchased.  Couple that with the fact that now days tablets/phones can do many of the same tasks that a large number of personal computer user did on them, and you can see why the numbers continue to shrink.

Yeh pretty much this. You now do not need to own a PC in order to carry out work and day to day tasks, even shopping online has come to mobile phones.  Only people who will need a desktop soon will pretty much be people like me!

I'm almost there. I only keep my desktop around for one game! If a decent MMO would come out for the iPad, I'd just dump my dekstop and move on. Order & Chaos, Celitic Heroes are both getting there, but not quite. All in good time.

EDIT: BTW, on the RPG front, Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced and Ravensword 2 put most desktop RPGs to shame, so I've got those in the meantime.

EDIT2: The Unity engine will change everything once it matures.

Brenics

Economy is what brings down sales. Once it gets better people will start buying again. A lot of people still don't know how to build a PC from scratch.

That is if the economy gets better, I have my doubts with the Democrat's in office and in the WH.

Not sure where people are saying Win8 is crap, I have zero problems with it and it runs everything great. I still believe it's the Metro UI people either hate or can't get use to. Or refuse to even give it a fair chance.

Talonsin

I think it is more an issue with hardware moving much faster than software plus the fact that building PC's is much easier and being taught in High School now. 

I purchased an Antec 1200 case, an Intel i7 975 extreme, 12 gigs of ram and several raptor hard drives which I setup in a raid-0 three years ago.  I only just last month upgraded the video card to a 580 and I still feel set for another few years.  I run a 24 inch monitor and can play any new game at max settings.  Years ago, I would build a new PC every 18 months to keep up but I dont have to anymore. 

strangepowers

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Originally posted by Sodahz
More people know how to build computers themselves as well and you will pay hell of a lot less by doing so for the same parts.

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^^ This and several other things including the fact that industry is involved and the fact that many buyers don't need a new PC... so of course there is a indication of a decline in annual/quarterly reports. You got one, most likely you are good for a while.

Some of you guys seriously need to learn to read between the lines. Maybe this is an indication of a lack of real life experience, but regurgitating an article like this on the forums without really understanding what it means is seriously misleading.

This is the second time in as many days someone has "reported" this article here.

There are many factors involved yet it certainly is not an indication of the "death of PC."

Onigod

I think it is also because loads of people start to buy computer parts seperately these days to keep their pcs up to date. Since the average knowledge about a computer is no longer potato.

 

 

Gaoxin

ofc they do...and you know why? Ppl cant stop buying sht like smartphones, tablets and other overpriced nonesense. They did it  to such degree that MS developed their new OS for these kind of devices. :<  W8 looks like a desktop of a smartphone or tablet. :<<<<<

TheJoda

Originally posted by Sodahz
More people know how to build computers themselves as well and you will pay hell of a lot less by doing so for the same parts.

^ this is for sure part of the reason.  I cant think of last time I bought a built computer.

Precusor

Originally posted by Talonsin

I think it is more an issue with hardware moving much faster than software plus the fact that building PC's is much easier and being taught in High School now. 

I purchased an Antec 1200 case, an Intel i7 975 extreme, 12 gigs of ram and several raptor hard drives which I setup in a raid-0 three years ago.  I only just last month upgraded the video card to a 580 and I still feel set for another few years.  I run a 24 inch monitor and can play any new game at max settings.  Years ago, I would build a new PC every 18 months to keep up but I dont have to anymore. 

Those years was horrendous and expensive as hell.