Global PC shipments drop to a five-year low

[TheDvEight]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24470639

[Sneakytiger]

i think with all the tablets around now it's easier for people browse the net on them and with consoles being so near to what a gaming pc is.
people who wanna game, just want to do that and not be worried if there game is gonna crash cause of update or memory glitch,etc.

[T-Bag]

i think with all the tablets around now it's easier for people browse the net on them and with consoles being so near to what a gaming pc is.
people who wanna game, just want to do that and not be worried if there game is gonna crash cause of update or memory glitch,etc.

Tablets and smartphones have done 1/2 the job. Hardware being relevant for much longer has done the rest. Even gaming PCs easily last 5 years these days while giving reasonable performance throughout. If your computer last twice as long, you buy one half as often. If you increasingly use a tablet then the need to upgrade is even less.

I completely disagree with consoles being near PCs. Consoles offer 720 graphics at 30fps. This couldn't be more dissimilar to what PC gaming offers. In the next gen it'll be closer to what many people have now with a PC, but still behind. I can't imagine too many people getting fed up of their 3 year old gaming rig and deciding that a 7 year old console will make up for it. If this trend had started around the time the next gen console hit I would have considered it a possibility.

[TeaLeaf]

I completely disagree with consoles being near PCs. Consoles offer 720 graphics at 30fps. This couldn't be more dissimilar to what PC gaming offers.

+1

Consoles are an LCD version of gaming - not liquid crystal display, but the 'lowest common denominator' type of gaming.    I'll stick with my far superior PC gaming thanks.

[Sneakytiger]

what i was trying to say tl is the masses would rather buy a console than have to mess around with a pc, the average joe in the street coud'nt even tell u how to turn a pc on.lol

[Sneakytiger]

btw bf4 and cod ghosts run on the xbox 1 at 60fps in full 1080p.

[smilodon]

Certainly there are a lot of people who play games exclusively on consoles, but that's been the case since Sega Mega drives etc. Console gamers and PC gamers are different creatures, although it's quite possible to be both at the same time.

I agree with T-Bag that PC hardware has a lot more life in it now. I'm running a Core 2Duo and a GTX 260. While my PC is at the end of its useful life it still plays Arma 3, Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite etc. at reasonable frame rates and resolutions. The kicker is that it was new in 2007. If I was using a PC built in 2001 in 2007 it would be useless for gaming. Add in tablets for media consumption and while there are plenty of PC users out there, we're less inclined to retire our hardware every few years.
A PC that does the Web, email and is a home for photos and video etc.  is what most consumers need and their old computer can still provide what they want, so why upgrade? Especially in a recession.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

[Sneakytiger]

its a shame we dont get exclusives any more the pc game market used to.
the other platforms do tend to get exclusives, i can't remember a game thats been exclusivly pc , indie titles maybe but not a main stream title.
nice post smilo and i agree with you any pc after 2007 dosen't need a major upgrade.
i've just updated my gfx card and yes the graphics are plush but it's not made a massive impact, i'm waiting for the next big thing,when the xbox 360 came out i was amazed how much the graphics had improved i was getting arcade machine graphics in my front room for the first time.

[smilodon]

The PC gets exclusives by type of game rather than title. MMO's like World of Warcraft, Warhammer, LotRO, SWTOR etc are all PC exclusive. Plus deep strategy games like the Total War series and civilisation are Pc only. There are also a lot of Indie developers who can't afford the costs associated with making games for consoles. So there is quite a lot of exclusive stuff, which is why I have always played PC games rather than Consoles. I'm an MMO fan, a strategy fan and like playing FPS games with a mouse and keyboard.

[ArithonUK]

Basically they're saying "fast food sales drop after lunch".

Is there a PC built since 2002 that cannot perfectly run any version of Office? Is there any gaming PC built in the last three to four years that cannot run BF4 today?

It's not ownership of PC's that's falling or even decreasing, it's that the growth of new PC sales are falling. That is hardly the same thing. And hardly any surprise in a saturated marketplace, where hardware innovation peaked three years ago.

My 2010 Intel Core i7 CPU can be beat by the latest equivalent CPU, but only by a very small %, but at a very large cost. Which is why I have no need or desire to upgrade. AMD and Intel have failed to compete or innovate enough in recent years. And why should they? Game developers have made enough cash from selling games that are "good enough" for 2007 Console hardware. There's no push to develop better hardware.

The reality is that technology is not a vertical market and when everybody has a PC or tablet or smartphone, then the sales will drop rapidly down to a level set by natural replacement. The PC market is heading that way. When PC's start to wear out in 2 to 3 years, the market for new PC's will pick up again and the good suppliers will have survived to enjoy that market.

[Blunt]

I doubt I could play FPS with a controller tbh.

I'd be interested to know if anyone uses one though.

[BrotherTobious]

Chaos has and still does the odd time. He was pretty effective at the last LAN he was at. Still think that for range of movement and accuracy and speed mouse and keyboard wins

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[smilodon]

I remember an old dMw player who used a joystick! Mr. Eggs I think.

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