Boring PCs Slow PC Industry, Says Gartner
Gartner has, once more, revised the shipment forecast for PCs this year.
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%.
By now we are used to this kind of news, as it is generally believed that it is the tablet - mainly the iPad - that is killing PC market growth. However, Gartner is taking a slightly different spin this time and says that there is just no consumer interest in mini notebooks anymore. Gartner says that the tablets have some impact, but the analysts do not believe that not many consumers will replace their notebook with a tablet. The much bigger problem is that there are no compelling reasons for replacing PCs that are generally seen as good enough.
The problem may be the commoditization of the PC and its hardware and the declining importance of the processor. Translation: The PC is just too boring today and new PCs have virtually no value over older computers. Gartner believes that there is still economic uncertainty, which additionally slows sales and that there is a need for business sales to drive growth. As business upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, Gartner believes that the business market has substantial opportunity for growth.

Only a tiny, tiny minority of people so much as open their case of their PC. Almost all PCs are prebuilt, not custom rigs, and the majority of them are laptops. The vasty majority of PC users do not use them for gaming.
Only a tiny, tiny minority of people so much as open their case of their PC. Almost all PCs are prebuilt, not custom rigs, and the majority of them are laptops. The vasty majority of PC users do not use them for gaming.
That won't make much of a difference. Both of those games can easily run on any mid range graphics card (which most people who game on their PC already have). Only the niche hardcore PC gamers actually spend the 300+ on the high end ones.
I am pretty sure most people decide to buy a computer or a new computer because they want something concerning the idea of the computer, not as a mantle to put over their fireplace. I am sure asthetics sways some peoples various purchasing decisions as in this one instead of that one. But I highly doubt anyone is going around saying, I can't find a computer in the color I like so I will buy something else instead.
That's why you shouldn't embarassed yourself with your reply. Also, Gartner is not an individual person, and Moore's Law doesn't imply anything about computer speed doubling ever two years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
You sir are sadly mistaken. Hard drives, Video cards, CPU's have all increased in speed by leaps and bounds. and will continue to double or more every two years.
Its not that hardware hasn't gotten WAY better (core2duo vs 2nd gen I7, 500mb/sec SSD vs 80mb/sec HDD) Its that WoW, Farmville, and console port'd games have made the PC's requirements stagnant, so there has been no reason to upgrade unless your old system broke.
I am not bragging, I don't own a super powerful machine. I have an i7-920 with 2 gtx 260 video cards and 12GB of ram. For me to push my GPU's and CPU's to their maximum, I have to run 3 xp vm's with Wow in each VM plus once on the host, each on its own screen.
"The much bigger problem is that there are no compelling reasons for replacing PCs that are generally seen as good enough."
And dale you are right, except it doesn't matter about games. Gamers are only a slim margin of pc users.
Until people have a valid reason to buy new computers their not gonna (again for the average person as there are some of us that will upgrade often). If I didn't game i would still be on my old athlon 64 with 2gb of ram. Because it easily runs the internet, email, movies/shows.. Well pretty much anything I need it to do except run games (and it'll even do that to an extent).
You forgot Crysis 2 and Modern Warfare 3. I had to upgrade my computer to play Crysis 2.
It's been more than a decade since "they all came in the color beige"... In fact, by 2005, the majority of prebuilts on the market were in black, black/grey or black/silver cases unless you were buying a Compaq or Emachine who were both using off-white cases.
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.
This right here is the problem, MW3 being considered a game that will stress your PC. hahaha, yea right
Battlefield 3 will hopefully bring a lot more people back to PC gaming
Because it's not the tablets, it's the stupid users who don't need anything more from their computer than a tablet can do. Though, in that case a tablet is still a poor choice - similarly priced netbook will be much better.
To "kill" PC market you need to shut down Intel, nVidia, AMD and a bunch of other companies and shift all the PC gaming to consoles. Sounds realistic to you? No? My point.