Is the PC Market dying?

Really interesting video with some thoughts:



While PC game sales are really great, is the PC market itself dying? Given that unlike the early to mid 2000s where you needed a PC for everything from email, to messenger, to internet etc. you can easily do all of those on tablets/smartphones now.

Ffs.

And here we go again.

This literally pops up at least once a year.

The market is changing, not dying. If I wasn't a gamer I'd probably be rocking a desktop from 7-8 years ago or something like a Surface or Yoga.
But I am...and there are lots of others who are jumping on the PC gaming train now, too.

The PC market in terms on new sales is contracting and my contract a bit further. But for those that need productivity, want to game, etc. I think the PC will see some growth at the higher end. So smaller volume with higher end stuff seeing small but steady growth. That seems how it's playing out for now at least.

It's not dying, but there is a shift happening. Like Rich said in the video, computers have gotten strong enough now that most people won't need to buy new ones for a long long time. For the basic everyday task most computer users engage in a cheap pre-built is totally fine for the next 5-10 years. That's a big reason why computer sales in general are dropping, that formally huge market segment is shrinking. On the higher-end side though things are growing. PC gaming is only getting bigger every year and that's a good thing. It not only drives game sales but also drives sales of higher-end hardware.

I've actually spoken to people at Intel, GIGABYTE, MSI and ASUS about this at length.

The market isn't dying, it's evolving into something that's different. The PC is different in both its design and how its used than it was two decades ago. Today's desktop is a niche piece of equipment that's used for things that require too much power to run on mobile platforms. According to statements made by people at the major motherboard manufacturer's are used for gaming more than anything else. This is why MSI essentially switched to a gaming only market focus. ASUS and GIGABYTE simply created sub-branding to handle those markets, but I've heard similar statistics from them stating that a vast percentage of newer desktops are built for gaming.

Previously, we had to use the desktop for almost everything as laptops were cost prohibitive and far less capable than their desktop counterparts. Mobile devices as we know them now either didn't exist or were niche products because they lacked capability and or elegance. The reality is that mobile computing from phones and tablets have supplanted the laptop and the desktop as we knew them for the most basic tasks. Many people prefer the smaller foot print and portability of the laptop over the desktop for when they require a little more power than the mobile devices can provide. Laptops overtook the desktop market when sub-$1,000 laptops became a thing. Similarly, the netbook and eventually the tablet would gradually replace traditional mobile computing devices like the laptop for similar reasons. They became both capable enough and cheap enough. People would generally rather browse the internet from their couch rather than their PC most of the time. They can watch TV, eat or do other things while casually browsing.

Dan_D said:

*snip

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You can speak with as many industry experts as you want, but Azureth is still going to post his yearly YouTube video that he randomly found while he was fapping to My Little Pony jpgs.

Criminy

Pringle said:

You can speak with as many industry experts as you want, but Azureth is still going to post his yearly YouTube video that he randomly found while he was fapping to My Little Pony jpgs.

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Good point.

Yeah, I cant buy a new Athlon 64 anywhere.
The market is fxd.

PC gaming is getting a boost because less and less games are console exclusive. See a few posts down about my Ace Combat 7 thread. Announced as PS4 and PS VR exclusive, now coming to PC and Xbox. Why? Because most game studios simply can't survive on a single platform these days. So I expect even more games to become multi platform and therefore on PC to. Even if PC only makes 25-35% of sales whereas the two consoles make up the rest, that is still a massive amount of potential sales that just can't be ignored. Even if PC gamers only buy 800,000 copies, the profits from that will likely out weight whatever MS/Sony offers to remain single platform.

mmm no shit sherlock?

Pringle said:

You can speak with as many industry experts as you want, but Azureth is still going to post his yearly YouTube video that he randomly found while he was fapping to My Little Pony jpgs.

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Azureth said:

Is the PC Market dying?

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No, but you are. We all are slowly but surely.

Azureth, if a person without legs died do you think that they should have a regular sized casket like everyone else or a shortened one? What do you think proper etiquette would be? And if it were shortened should it just be at the hip instead of stuffing them in a children's coffin?

PC market overall is shrinking but the high end PC market is going strong...even HDR is coming to PC monitors which is a good sign

Just my opinion, and please hear me out...

For most people, their present computers do the tasks that they need to accomplish "just fine". Those tasks are watching videos, viewing web pages, reading email, and paying bills. Perhaps play solitare. The biggest improvement that they would see isn't from a faster processor, or from better graphics, it's replacing the hard drive with a SSD. If they are running 4GB, get them up to 8GB. It's to the point where if it's isn't broken, why replace it, especially when it does the job.

Heck, I picked up two 5yo desktops over the past year that have Intel® Core™ i5-2400 Processor (Sandy Bridge) processors. After replacing the hard drives with SSDs, perhaps increasing the RAM, and definitely upgrading to Windows 10, these are still incredibly useful machines for the tasks that I was using them for, which wasn't game playing or video editing. (The main reason I got these machines was to perform testing under Windows 10 Slow Ring and Fast Ring previews). Even after they are no longer good for Windows, I can still use them as Linux boxes.

For my main computer, the UberBoxen, even that has changed from the provided link in that I am now using a 1 TB SSD, and have a better monitor. But, what is there to upgrade on that system? Nothing wrong with that i7-4790K processor (Devil's Canyon). My memory is maxed out at 32GB. Now, I may get a better video card, but the 980 isn't a slouch.

It feels like games are hitting an all time low but the pc itself is booming. I haven't even logged into steam since that space exploration flop. I can't think of a single interesting title recently. I've switched to board gaming as a hobby.

sos thread

PC market and PC gaming have been dying since at least 2005. Yet, I am sitting here in 2017 enjoying the likes of Deus Ex Mankind Divided at 100+ FPS on a high res monitor. Te horror! I guess I should just trade it in for an Xbox and a copy of Hello Kitty Island Adventure. After all, my platform is DYING!

Development of new hardware and innovations has stopped being a dead platform.
But I'm puzzled how my VR setup came about. And the other competing versions.
I'm blown away for choice when choosing a new motherboard, gfx card, SSD, display, mouse, keyboard, PSU, ram, case ...
Looks like all the hardware mfrs have been lead astray.
Its such a sad situation.

When I die PC gaming will be dead for me.

It gets really old to see the dumb Wall Street view that a market can only be "growing" or "dying". So if a market stops growing it is automatically dying. No there is a third option: Stable. There are plenty of products out there, and PCs are becoming one, that everyone who wants one has one. Thus there is no growth in the market, they sell mostly replacements/upgrades. While that doesn't make you as much exciting money as growing, it is 100% sustainable and fine to be in that situation.

So ya, PC sales are dropping and PC tech advances are slowing down. Know what that is? Maturity, The market is stabilizing, we are reaching a saturation point where it won't be leaps and bounds more sales every year. That's ok. That isn't a bad thing, that won't mean the end. Home appliances have been that way for a long time: Slow development, sales are mostly replacements, etc and it is going strong. TVs were that way for a long time before HDTV hit the market, and are going back to being that way again.

No. The PC market isn't "dying".

With new devices and form-factors, it's had a lengthy period of "correction". Where people have started using more niche devices (like tablets and phones) to fill gaps that were formerly filled by desktop machines, laptops, etc.

Consequently, revenue generation in various markets has slowed or stopped as new devices find and fill various niches.

Given the crap that was released in January for PC and consoles, I think the bigger problem is gaming is dying... :bleh:

KickAssCop said:

Given the crap that was released in January for PC and consoles, I think the bigger problem is gaming is dying... :bleh:

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It comes in leaps and bounds at other times.
Just after the years major sales period is not the best time to release.

I've probably purchased more games in the last 3 years than any other time since the PS1 era. The last 90 days hasn't exactly been killing it, but that's partially because of lot of big releases were delayed. The next 6 months looks pretty bright.

My little pony will die first.