PC Sales drop like a rock. Let's play the game of...

how low will it go??

According the IDC. PC sales dropped double digits across various regions.

Asia: - 10%

Europe: - 15%

While sales of tablets are on the rise, along with smartphones. The enterprise markets are increasingly having their employees and sales users use tablets for many of their day to day work. Sales employees are increasingly using their tablets with specialized apps to process transactions on their iPADs. Something that previously they used to do on their laptops. I would say that the turning point was in 2012 when tablets had record number of activations during Christmas times.

Let's face it. You don't really need a swooped up PC or need to replace your PC at your workplace as often you need to do over the last 5-6 years. I mean I have an older PC (not my main Gaming PC) with an intel Q6600 and an AMD Radeon HD 4850 that I could play games that came out between 2008 - 2010 all maxed out in 1080P might I add. Games like Assassins Creed II for example. I could only say a couple of games, that I could count with my fingers that came out between 2008 - 2010 and prior that I can't run maxed out on my Q6600 + HD 4850 PC.

It's getting so bad that intel is laying of 5,000 workers citing bleak outlook of the PC market. That's why AMD's CEO is beginning to transform AMD where AMD will only rely on half their revenue to come from selling chips for desktop or laptops.

So, what do you guys think? Will the PC laptop and desktop market continue to see double digit decline in 2014?

Source:

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33711-pc-sales-tumble-across-the-world

None of that is taking into account digital sales which are nearly 60% of PC games sales these days. Also there haven't been many AAA PC games this year. Other than BF4 (crap), and Tomb Raider there has not been a lot released in the last 6 months. In short, the sky is not falling we just need better/more big name releases. But that won't be happening until late spring, early summer. We are in a major dry spell lately. I actually went back to playing WoW for a while.

Disregard my previous post, I misread your title and gamespot won't let me edit or delete my post on my iPad. God I hate this site redesign.

IDC is using data from prebuilt computer manufactures, like Dell and HP. They over look any kind of information for people who build their own or someone who buy from an independent builder. The PC markets is already a stable market, everyone who would have bought a computer would have done so. A computer built five years ago could handle most things just well for the casual market who only want to use it for facebook or candy crush saga.

Gaming PCs are not in a decline. I saw this report from IGN that mentioned how the number one selling video card was the Titan. Falcon NW and Maingear are all seeing growth sales from people who want top of the line hardware. Newegg doesn't seem to be hurting from people buying hardware.

I assume the IDC is talking about 'badged' computers, from the likes of Dell, Sony, HP, Lenovo etc. At my workplace, we haven't bought from those traditional manufacturers in years. We either buy from a local supplier due to better service arrangements, or go online to find the cheapest price from a site that will build what we need at a discount.

In the distant past we used both Dell and Gateway PCs, and the after-sales service was terrible from both companies. When their PCs broke down, they point-blank refused to send out an engineer, in spite of the fact we had a 3 year on-site service contract with them. Terrible customer service, and we never used either of them again.

Anyway, I'm not surprised if there is a decline. A lot of light computer users are simply 'consumers' of content, such as internet browsing, picking up emails, etc., so it makes sense to use tablets and smartphones which are more portable. For proper work and gaming, though, I don't think the humble PC is going anywhere soon.

Hell I just build my own PC's these days. If it means the death of Dell then I'm pretty damn happy to hear it, basically what I'm saying is **** dell and all they stand for (the lowest common denominator in my experience).

:D

My local mom n' pop PC repair shop even says the average joe is starting to build custom PCs for their homes. They buy parts online and bring it in to be assembled for $50

Everyone and their mom's bought X1 & PS4. Oh well.. they're the one's missing out ;)

The market will weed out those who have no real need for a PC. I doubt there will be a free fall. Students, for one thing, will ensure a need for PCs (both desktops and laptops). Make them type 10-20 page essays on a tablet and watch the howls of protest. I bought tablets for me and everyone in my family. That's four, including one for my six-year old. Yet, not one of them wants me to take their PCs away. Well, my six-year old doesn't care because she doesn't have a PC yet.

As a survivor of the Commodore Amiga, I know what real decline is. This isn't even close.

Consumers moving away from the traditional PC. 5-15 years ago families kinda needed that PC in the study of office. For browsing the web, checking email and even doing schoolwork. It was an added bonus when it played games and had some grunt to watch videos or show fancy 3D graphics.

Now you have tablets or smartphones that can meet all those basic requirements and still let you play angry birds. They aren't much cheaper, but they are portable, sleek and widely accepted by the trend-setters. TVs are now smart enough to do many of those things too, on a big screen in the living room. Most people just don't need a PC now because the other devices have taken what the PC did it for casuals.

I don't think windows 8 necessarily helped matters, it's clearly designed for tablets so in some ways it's helped push people away from traditional desktops.

I'm not a doom and gloom guy when it comes to PC gaming, but I can't really see the situation getting much better. There will still be a place for PCs in the workplace for a while yet. If Steam didn't exist things might be a lot worse than they are. Indie games, early access, F2P and MMOs are still holding up the platform in regards to PC gaming. Publishers are still porting games due to no royalties. PC gaming isn't going anywhere soon, but so many devices are replacing the core functionality that it will have to fight for its place. PC sales will continue to struggle, perhaps level out at some point.

im pretty sure the pc will not die. If it dies it will be a gigantic loss :(

People upgrade there damn smartphones, and tablets almost everyday, so the sales are high. People probably don't feel the need to buy a new desktop/laptop PC because its more than powerful enough to do everything they use it for, or they don't use it as much as the use there smartphone. I'm having a good laugh at all the drones constantly buying new phone upgrades, weren't these the same people bitching, and wondering why PC gamers/users were always upgrading there desktop rigs?

@nutcrackr said:

PC gives you the most freedom by far. Imagine a world where you could no longer go to a site like newegg, and by exactly which PC hardware components you wanted, but instead having everything be preconfigured for you, weather you like it or not. Being forced to make huge trade offs, or being forced to buy a crappy slow-ass phone for $500. Thats why I hate the mobile market, it will slowly take over, and the traditional desktop will no longer exist, and will be forced to buy shitty iPhones, and paying out the ass for sub par hardware, and capabilities, and having to play crappy games loaded with in app purchases. No more free software, you have to buy everything through an app store. **** that, **** it right in the ass.

lmao fudzilla

I'm sure the tablets and small devices market has a lot to do with it. But PC desktops aren't going away for a long time. Source: Crystal ball. :D

Casuals make up a big portion of the market, while most us have custom built pc's or workstation computers.

well you certainly arent going to be doing office work and stuff like CAD, accounting, art, or gaming on a tablet :P

1. I agree. It's pretty astonishing the rate at which iOS based tablets/phone and Android based phones that are being used for work related activities at my work place. And yes, it can prove pretty lethal for Microsfot.

2. Well I do have a top end PC (at least it was top end in 2011) my HD 4850+ Q6600 is my other PC for testing purposes and to do some old gaming. It was just used to highlight that even older games pre-2010 can be maxed out at 1080P.

I am not going to disagree with anything you stated. Not once I mentioned that PC will go away. I simply pointed to that states that PC sales are declining. That is a FACT. Simply because of the fact that for using work related stuff, people can go by on 5-6 year old hardware fine. There will still be market for PC's and Laptops but it won't be at the level that it was before.

That's what worries me. I mean I could pretty much max every game out with my main gaming PC with my HD 6970. The only game it struggled was with couple of games the most recent being BF4 at 1080P where settings had to be turned down to medium. I have always upgraded GPUs every 2 generations. 2006-->2008-->2010 (brought the HD 6970 in early 2011). This might the first time in the past 6-7 year where I have broke the 2 year cycle.

That's an interesting thought. Never seen it in that prespective because as other's have mentioned PC gaming is still healthy and Steam is pretty healthy. My initial thought with Steambox was for Steam to bring the PC experience/PC gaming to the living room.

Yes you are right. They are referring to mostly badged Dell, Sony, HP stuff. Most of them are PC's with those crappy joke intel integrated graphics.

PC gaming at least custom-built Gaming PC are still pretty healthy. I wouldn't see a decline in that. If that was the case then nVidia and AMD would be go broke.

Rest assured it will not die. The casual/business PC market is decreasing but the PC gaming (laptop/desktop) market is sill very healthy I don't anticipate it to die.

The mobile market will not take over the tradition desktop market. Yes, the market will decrease (it's happening right now as we speak). But it will never decrease to the point where it will no exists. PC Gaming market is still very healthy, there will be people like be who likes playing games in FULL HD 1080P with everything maxed out with the latest DX 11 effects and so forth. As long as those people exists then the Desktop market will never die.

@FelipeInside said:

Ha! Currently the story of my life!

With a gaming software revenue of around $25 billion, home PC's are going no where at the moment. The next step is likely an upgradable games machine, i.e. Steam Machine. Which is really nothing more than a PC with a Linux based OS. This will also change the way PC's are looked once they become a central part of the living room, people will wonder why they didn't have something like that before.

10 - 15% isn't really dropping like a rock. It could just be people who use their pre built PC's for things like facebook and twitter switching to tablets and smartphones, as it can be used anywhere. May not even be anything to do with the gaming community.

And like others said, a lot of people who game on PC are building their own these days. My friend didn't know how to build a PC, but he got me to point out the components and put one together for him.

In the casual market, no one is buying desktops anymore. Most are going to tablets - some laptops.

For business, it's almost entirely laptops as more companies are encouraging their employees to work from home (yay?) - but even more are moving to tablets. Desktops? For most day-to-day - outside graphic designers, no chance.

However, this doesn't speak at all to the gaming scene. Most gamers don't go to Dell or HP for their PCs, they go to places like Newegg and Amazon and buy the parts themselves. Your article's statistics doesn't touch this.

It's definitely a big change in the PC market, but not one that that affects gaming all that much. Until there's a day that tablets can perform just as well as desktops or cloud gaming really can bring high quality gaming to our homes, the enthusiast PC market is going nowwhere. The technology just isn't there yet for the tablet and most countries Internet infrastructure is even further away from making cloud gaming a true success.

i think both intel and Nvidia have let it slip that the enthusiast sector of the market is expanding. intel mentioned it when there was a little panick over intel removing sockets and just building the CPU straight onto the motherboard. that plan look like its for the lower end only if it does go ahead.

most people have hit the nail on the head. most people are not buying PCs or laptops because they dont need an upgrade. the sys requirements for using dinternet havent really gone up. a 10 year old computer will still do the job. same for word processing. mainstream PCs have a content problem (or at least a percieved content problem...the actual content available to even a basic PC still far outstripps mobile device and tablet.).

investors and the major PC builders still think a new windows will shift hardware. it doesnt. most people dont care about windows...its just the thing they use to launch a browser.

in saying that smaller PC builders may also be doing pretty well. i ordered a new laptop last year from one and they seemed to be swamped. it certainly didn't fly through production. again they are focused on the enthusiast sector not the mass market area.

dell and co need to give a good reason for people and business to buy a new mainstream device. wonky shapes wont do it....they need to start showing content...show what these machines can do. at the end of the day what these devices can do makes a mockery of other devices.

to be honest i don't use my main pc that much anymore either. My main machine is my laptop, its much more portable than a pc while at the same time productive than a tablet. So a decent half way point between both ends. I tried tablets multiple tablets and I don't like them that much. My secondary machine is my smartphone and its taken over some of the stuff i used to do on my pc/laptop like email and calendar.

Yet Steam accounts jumped from 65 to 75 million Active users . Lot of people build their own PCs as well , then there haven't been any game to push PC hardware , this year and next year are looking interesting though . I do agree that Windows 8 is hurting PC sales but sky is not falling , yet .

There is one more thing that has helped big time this year..Kickstarter it took gaming to another lvl..Some of yall may hate it..It certainly has helped the pc market, bye bringing back old titles from the dead..Companies like ea an blizzard wouldn't touch the space genre for a long time..Well guess what star citizen an elite dangerous told them that's what the public wanted..Also wasteland 2, divinity, pillars of eternity, torment, these are only a few that I no of being made atm ultima..The list is endless,ive seen a lot more kickstarter games being around this year also..

So pc is far from dead..Its quit alive and kicking..Ive not bought a pad yet, im waiting till they have real power that can play pc games..Right now its only small games that these tablits can make..There also micromanaged which I hate..Every freaking game tries to take money out of your wallet to play there game..That's cool an all sure but im not giving a damn cent to these companies..Id rather support a kickstarter game for the amount of money some people waste..