Boring PCs Slow PC Industry, Says Gartner

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I hardly see the PC as boring. Obviously Mr. Gartner needs to make work for himself so saying thing "inciteful" is useful to his employment.

Like others have said much speedier hardware, a much better windows 7, ect....

I am no computer geek but I love to tinker with my pc, and also I can and do open the pc from time to time to clean and occasionally add a new stick of ram or a new video card.

After almost a decade of using my old hp pavilion 7955 I am still fascinated by the PC.
 
"The market research firm now believes that the PC market will only grow by 9.3% to 385 million units instead of the previously forecasted 10.5%."
Really ? 9.3% MORE instead of 10.5% MORE ?
These are strange times we live in if such information can be viewed as worrying. F***ing consumptionism...
 
without demanding library of softwares, it is inevitable that PC hardwares will slow down its progress. With piracy running rampant, there is little reason for software developers to produce games on a PC. Now, I see two possible solution for this stagnation. 1. violators are charged a significant sum for their pirated games and softwares. 2. hardware manufacturers help out game developers. Or option 3, (while this may sound wishful and probably will never ever happen), pirates out there.. stop stealing! PC has become a very unattractive market due to pirates. The only thing fueling the PC industry right now is the World of Warcrack with its more demanding hardware requirement which forces the users to upgrade every couple years. But I think this might come to a halt in couple of years as well.

Pc also lacks in interactivity in comparison to tablet pcs. THe ability to touch, is a new approach on how we interact with our digital apparatuses. Granted, we all know that mouse and a keyboard is the most efficient combo during sedentary activities, but the gimmicky touch tech is something that has not been implemented on PCs. I think perhaps Microsoft kinetic coupled with Windows 8 as well as an OS sync with our smart phones will once again boost PC hardware sales.
 
[citation][nom]sr87dot62[/nom]The only thing fueling the PC industry right now is the World of Warcrack with its more demanding hardware requirement which forces the users to upgrade every couple years. [/citation]

I LOL-ed.
 
PC hardware has been boring for the last 2 years or so. Sure newer hardware has come out....but who cares. The games of the last few years dont push a modern system all that hard. Im typing this on a phenom 2 system with a ati 4850 and i can run any game i want, any app i want without feeling the system is too slow. Sure i could go out an buy a new i7 or go buy a 68xx graphics card...but why? I already run every game at maxed settings, so why do i need either? I use to upgrade every other graphics card cycle, every other cpu cycle or so. But lately im completely bored with new hardware. Someone call me when things start doubling again rather then going up 10%; or when games come out that actually start to challenge systems again.... Rather then just being dumbed down console ports.
 
First and foremost, blame this on the fact that America raises a bunch of ignorant, idiots whom have no drive or ambition to learn - they instead just want it handed to them and told they can do all these fancy things.


Has anyone built a PC recently? A person with down syndrome and only has one hand could build a PC today. He could also upgrade and configure it the way he wanted.


The fact that the general population knows little to nothing about a PC in terms of "under the hood" and how everything works, shows you we belong to a society that is just dumb; and they truly WANT to be dumb.


No, I'm not saying we should all be technological pros here, but knowing about the simple things....clock speeds, cores and just staying informed on what is what in the technology world and what each component does, is not a difficult concept to grasp. We rather just have Apple do all of that for us, pay a much more premium price, and not have to deal with something that could be learned in a few hours time.
 
[citation][nom]vestin[/nom]"The market research firm now believes that the PC market will only grow by 9.3% to 385 million units instead of the previously forecasted 10.5%."Really ? 9.3% MORE instead of 10.5% MORE ?These are strange times we live in if such information can be viewed as worrying. F***ing consumptionism...[/citation]

Capitalism at It's best. Should just rename it to, "Greedism". People bitch about how they only made 5 billion....THEY WANT MORE PROFITS NEXT YEAR. MORE MORE MORE!
 
Sorry, I fail. let's try again: (Being able to edit your comments or getting a preview would be nice)
[citation][nom]n58902345[/nom]Moores law is dead, non-existant. The processor, video card, hardware in general from a computer isn't doubled in speed in 2 years or 1 year and 6 months even. [/citation]

Moore's law says that the number of transistors on a processor will double roughly every 24months.
This is still true, AFAIK.
Actual performance however isn't directly linked to the number of transistors on a processor and will increase slower.
[citation][nom]aznguy0028[/nom]Apparently Gartner never heard about a few little games coming out this year...something called Diablo 3 and Battlefield 3 which will drive crazy numbers of pc upgrades.[/citation]

95% of PCs are not used for gaming.
Even most gamers have no reason to upgrade, because cross-platform games are held back by consoles and even high-end PC games have to be playable on low-end hardware if they want to find a target audience.
All PC games u can buy today run perfectly fine on 3-4year old mid-range hardware. (think: core2duo, ATI HD4xxx)

The regular non-gaming PC user has almost no reason to upgrade if he or she has a core2duo and 2GB of RAM. Even an ancient Pentium 4 is still perfectly usable.
 
[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Sorry, I fail. let's try again: (Being able to edit your comments or getting a preview would be nice)[/citation]
You can edit your comments by going to "Read the comments on the forums" via the link above. There you will find quick edit and full edit buttons below your comments (next to the quote/reply button).
 
[citation][nom]aznguy0028[/nom]Apparently Gartner never heard about a few little games coming out this year...something called Diablo 3 and Battlefield 3 which will drive crazy numbers of pc upgrades.[/citation]

Diablo 3 appears to be using something like the World Of Warcraft engine so it will hardly push the hardware at all.
 
I don't think it's so much that PC's are "boring" I think it's just that we've gotten to the point where what we have is fast enough to run just about everything that's out there software-wise. Other than replacing some aging hard drives and eventually the video card (9800GT/GTS250) I don't plan on replacing anything else any time soon. Then again, with the ability to SLI, I might not even replace my aging video card, I might just pick up a matching card to stick in the second slot.

As for piracy, I'll admit, I used to do it. Now with the sales they have on Steam, there's no point. I just wait for whatever game I want to go on sale and buy it. I'll occasionally pay retail price for something if it's a really good game, but most games these days aren't, so I don't feel bad at all for paying $10 or less for them on Steam. I got a decent game to play, the devs got a few bucks, and everyone should be happy.
 
[citation][nom]aznguy0028[/nom]Agreed. That is why i said "upgrades" and not total outright new pc's. Things such as more ram, change of video cards, new hard drives, blue ray drives, etc are bought all the time to add into a pc.[/citation]
I don't think you understood my post, you're not actually agreeing with anything I said. You're mistaken, upgrades might seem like a popular thing to you, but it's just a insignificant fraction of the overall market - which is what Gartner is interested in here, not the small number on enthusiasts that buy new RAM, graphics cards, hard drives, etc. The overwhelming majority of people just buy new PC's from OEM's such as DELL, and the majority of PCs bought these days are laptops which have limited upgradability anyway. Most PCs aren't used for gaming, so the release of Diablo 3 and Battlefield 3 is going to have next to no impact on the market, when you were implying the opposite.
 
Most people just want to use a computer to use facebook, twitter, watch a movie, listen to music. Tasks any smartphone or tablet can accomplish. Other then that the only other task necessary for the "average consumer" might be email, or writing a paper for school or work. Tasks that can be performed at a school, library or other public computer.

As tablets and phones become more independent of the pc counterpart (see iOS 5) there be less and less of a need for people to purchase pc's.

Also, if you've bought a computer in the last 5-10 years it is still pretty capable of browsing the internet and running most forms of multimedia, so there is not much of a need for the "average consumer" to purchase one.

Combine all that with a down global economy and it's no surprise pc sales are sluggish and will continue to be so for the next 5-10 yrs or until there is some new technology that convinces people the need a new pc.

While PC gaming drives higher-end pc sales, the majority of sales is to people that use it for school or email, internet browsing, ect.
Business will continue to use pc's for all the various tasks that they are needed for, so that portion of Demand will continue to be steady.
 
We are at a point in hardware where speed is at a standstill and when you look at what is coming out. Its lower powered PC's with slower CPU's. I think most feel that its not that computers are boring. Its just that they are not that much better then what they have.
 
It is all about supply and demand and saturation, atm everyone who wants a computer has one the only way they are going to buy a new computer is when their computer breaks down.

So right now the reason why pc sales have dipped is because everyone has one ,But then pc games have stopped pushing the envelope on hardware due to fact they want their game to run on low end hardware so game quality suffers and less people buy new pc's to replace their out of date machine.

The new pc games that are going to be released such as diablo 3 will not push hardware i have yet to see any pc game able to push my computer at home to the point where i have low frame rates.

I7 2600k OC 4.1 ghz water cooled
2x gtx 470 sli
16 gigs of ddr3 2500

The reason why people are buying ipads is because they want a portable computer most have desktops already most use the ipad as an e-reader.
People want a light small computer most notebooks are heavy and battery life is poor.
 
Microsoft,nvidia,amd,and intel need to get together with game developers, and start advertising the pc as a gaming platform on t.v. Just like everything else is advertised.
 
In other words, they're having trouble cramming enough bells and whistles in software to force us to upgrade our hardware.
 
@vittau

I tend to agree....but also even the stupid or dumb consumer IS aware of the term "BLOATWARE" and they know that this is a NEGATIVE aspect in the PC world.

I agree that American society today is really dumbed down, and from my own personal experience most consumers want the latest gadgets that do tend to be somewhat complex, but they DO NOT want to LEARN how to utilize these products effectively.

Learning and self teaching is a lost art in the US today.

Where did all the inquisitiveness go in people in the US today?

Personally I am 45 years old and I never get tired of learning new things, especially stuff related to the technological world, yet today I see a lot of much younger people that just want things handed to them in every way. They don't want to have to "work at it" and accomplish things on their own.
 
[citation][nom]southernshark[/nom]The PC needs to change. It is boring. It needs new functionality.[/citation]
Bull. This is excactly what I predicted years ago. Microsoft directed focus of games away from PC's to their own console (which they have totally under control). Since Games used to be one o/t factors thriving the High-end PC industry, this is nothing extrordinary. This is just planned ahead. FUD
 
I think it would help if all new PCs have a CableCard as standard hardware. This would move the PC in to a Full Media solution. I have a Ceton InfiniTV 4 CableCard and this hardware makes my PC feel like a 'must have' utility item.
 
[citation][nom]malphas[/nom]I don't think you understood my post, you're not actually agreeing with anything I said. You're mistaken, upgrades might seem like a popular thing to you, but it's just a insignificant fraction of the overall market - which is what Gartner is interested in here, not the small number on enthusiasts that buy new RAM, graphics cards, hard drives, etc. The overwhelming majority of people just buy new PC's from OEM's such as DELL, and the majority of PCs bought these days are laptops which have limited upgradability anyway. Most PCs aren't used for gaming, so the release of Diablo 3 and Battlefield 3 is going to have next to no impact on the market, when you were implying the opposite.[/citation]
Actually no, I completely understood what you were saying. My OP was not clear enough so there was some confusion. Any major game launch for AAA titles will drive sales of PC upgrades (pc parts such as vid cards, new hdd, ram etc) hence D3, Bf3, MW3, Skyrim, etc will make gamers buy those parts. That's one thing, what I agreed with you is that, yes OEM pc's and the great majority of PC's that people buy are not upgradable and people hardly if ever change anything themselves. So my point was, PC as a whole, is not usually replaced all together with a new system, but rather in small parts by enthusiasts or gamers. So Gartner has a point, but a rather moot one, you don't see whole PCs being replaced (that's true), but it is ignoring the fact that there is a demand and a huge market for replacement and upgrading parts, which I was implying when huge titles come out, which still drives the PC economy. Hence the PC market isn't "boring", or else there would be no new innovation such as SSDs, new vid card, thunderbolt...etc.
 
The problem is PC parts are never reported. PC gamer says that there is ton of revenue in these PC upgrades And Newegg confirms this very well. Every time I go to their site they push hardware ads to let their customer know what is out there. And quite frankly some of the parts people buy haves more than 500+ reviews on it. For those that say "its a tiny fraction" well I have to say is apple is tiny fraction of computers and look where they at now. The difference here is PC parts does not have a marketing team to back it up where apple does.

This just shows that anyone in the marketing field will be making bank. I agree with most that hardware advances is leaps ahead. To bad the software isn't. I agree with this article to some extent.
 
[citation][nom]MarioJP[/nom]The problem is PC parts are never reported. PC gamer says that there is ton of revenue in these PC upgrades And Newegg confirms this very well. Every time I go to their site they push hardware ads to let their customer know what is out there. And quite frankly some of the parts people buy haves more than 500+ reviews on it. For those that say "its a tiny fraction" well I have to say is apple is tiny fraction of computers and look where they at now. The difference here is PC parts do not have a marketing team to back it up where apple does.This just shows that anyone in the marketing field will be making bank.[/citation]
Yup, my point exactly. People don't seem to understand that there is a sizable market out there for it, obviously stirred by an existing demand. You can not report on PC upgrades as a "whole sale" in terms of percentage. OEM sales and such might be slowing down for whatever insert reason here, but parts and custom builds are happening all the time. It might not impact the uber big picture because it's hard to conclusively report on individual parts but it does drive the PC economy forward and should be noted. When was the last time a major revolution in the PC industry took place and drove sales through the roof that would be seen in the big picture? The microprocessor? The GPU? Changes were added incrementally through out the lifespan of the PC industry itself and eventually found itself into OEM pc that normal people would buy. 1TB hard drives were considered "enthusiast" back in the days, but eventually found their way into OEM pc's now that people buy. Similar to how apple now have SSD options in the mac line up. The whole industry of "PC" itself is so huge, that virtually everything is a minority which would never impact the whole picture. A Pentium 2 machine would suffice for most of the things normal people do, such web surfing, email, and sending pictures.
 
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