PC Sales down 7.7%; US up 1%

[ALIVE]

gamers have went to consoles many times in the past, saying PC are dead.

I haven't bought one myself in a very long, long time.

I still prefer a PC myself, for many reasons.

i also like pc for my reasons
i do not say pc is dead

i say not to count irrelevant sales as pc loss

you can not browse internet on a tablet that will be torture
yes for something quick like quick look on google maps it will be okey

tablets are tablets
smartphones are smartphones

they are their own categories
as the pc did not make television disappear
there where tv tuners
but we still have tv screens and tv monitors

a person that has a tablet is the person who used to have a video and watch things on his tv now he watch it on his tablet.

whats the reason today for someone to upgrade his system?? none

 

[MongGrel]

well if companies give to the people what they want and not what they think they want the sales would be different

people that buy tables or smart phones they would never bought a pc so saying because tablets sold that many pieces it cut pc sales is plain stupid.

if gamers go to consoles then we have to ask why it that??
maybe because the games there are better?
maybe because there are without problems?

a console is a closed system thus you know you buy a game you play it on computer its another story. not help the pc when you need a 3k machine to play the latest games. gamer is a gamer

so then we have the rest that use a pc the real people of the pc world. but them why to upgrade???? for 3% improvement thank you intel????

intel feeling so secure is doing silly mooves that will reflect in lower sales

that why while pc sales goes does nvidia sales goes up
every generation in nivdia there is a difference

Your fake Engrish seems to wear off in threads lately, but I suppose this isn't really the place to address that one.

Have a nice day.

 

[cytg111]

Seeing how our desktop parts is scraps from the server-table, since the server-segment is x86 dominated, hence Intel, little competition is happening there. Get a race going in the server segment and I bet we will se IPC and clocks rise again. (arm, amd, help - anyone?)
Until then, Intel is using this break to stretch one core from server to tablet(soon phones i am sure).

 

[ALIVE]

Seeing how our desktop parts is scraps from the server-table, since the server-segment is x86 dominated, hence Intel, little competition is happening there. Get a race going in the server segment and I bet we will se IPC and clocks rise again. (arm, amd, help - anyone?)
Until then, Intel is using this break to stretch one core from server to tablet(soon phones i am sure).

if pc is going to win the consoles it needs stability
in software and in hardware

and the companies that make titles for pc to be a little more serious and make games not benchmarks for graphics cards that turn gamers away from pc not on pc

well competition competition hmmmm
none found
next cpu from intel will be 0.5% better and all the fan-boys can say woohoo
we love you intel you are the best

stop soldering and used cheap tim in cpu and now we have cpus that run hotter
THANK YOU INTEL

 

[cytg111]

if pc is going to win the consoles it needs stability
in software and in hardware

and the companies that make titles for pc to be a little more serious and make games not benchmarks for graphics cards that turn gamers away from pc not on pc

well competition competition hmmmm
none found
next cpu from intel will be 0.5% better and all the fan-boys can say woohoo
we love you intel you are the best

stop soldering and used cheap tim in cpu and now we have cpus that run hotter
THANK YOU INTEL

What?
Consoles works cause 1. They're multifunctional livingroom appliances that integrates seamlessly with your TV and 2. Fixed hardware spec for n years. And "pc" is allready in the consoles, as in x86, both ps4 and xb1. If anything we could hope that the next xbox will continue to be an x86 part and run some level of windows10 so we'll have a crossover there.
(the steambox was a candidate to rival the classic consoles though)

 

[escrow4]

Could never stand consoles. Big screens too hard to focus over a smaller PC screen. Games are not 1080/60p. Need to buy a splitter (or something) that can connect 2.1 PC speakers. Meh too much effort. More to the point what games? Each year there are barely 4 or 5 AAA titles most of which are not worth it anyway. Call of Duty #14 with a 5hr campaign? The Witcher III this year was a single player anomaly.

As for the cloud don't automatically assume everyone has a stable fast internet connection (or wants one). Or a thin client. Windows Phone is a failure and Android is the swiss cheese XP of OSs. I'll stick with a keyboard not a phone powering anything.

 

[cytg111]

Could never stand consoles. Big screens too hard to focus over a smaller PC screen. Games are not 1080/60p. Need to buy a splitter (or something) that can connect 2.1 PC speakers. Meh too much effort. More to the point what games? Each year there are barely 4 or 5 AAA titles most of which are not worth it anyway. Call of Duty #14 with a 5hr campaign? The Witcher III this year was a single player anomaly.

As for the cloud don't automatically assume everyone has a stable fast internet connection (or wants one). Or a thin client. Windows Phone is a failure and Android is the swiss cheese XP of OSs. I'll stick with a keyboard not a phone powering anything.

"The Witcher III this year was a single player anomaly."

an anomaly that was/is a blockbuster.. Just saying, if there's gold, trolls will follow(!)

As for the cloud don't automatically assume everyone has a stable fast internet connection (or wants one).

I suppose the ones in the focus group has.

Windows Phone is a failure and Android is the swiss cheese XP of OSs. I'll stick with a keyboard not a phone powering anything.

I predict that windows-on-the-phone(continuum) is gonna make a huge comeback pretty soon, piggybacking on the success of the surface line.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I predict that windows-on-the-phone(continuum) is gonna make a huge comeback pretty soon, piggybacking on the success of the surface line.

I just ordered a phone this morning. Didn't even think about Continuum and MS Phone 10 OS. Is it x86 or ARM based?

My new phone is a Samsung entry-level, with a quad-core ARM. (My current phone is a single-core.)

 

[greenhawk]

maybe because the games there are better?
maybe because there are without problems?

...not help the pc when you need a 3k machine to play the latest games. gamer is a gamer

....for 3% improvement thank you intel????

On the first, that is debatable in itself and depends greatly on the type of game. That being said, PC gamers (or ones that call themselves that) go across for reasons that are, in my mind, a effect, not a cause (ie: due to.. not because of).

Take game developers, they follow the next "big" thing so see only writing for console devices as more profitable (at least until near the end of a cycle), which means if you want to play new games, you have to go console. Some games to "transfer" to PC, but the track record for that is very buggy software that does not work smoothly. And a lot of that is due to coding for hand controllers. For the odd game I bought the PC conversion for, it is like comparing a ripe ready to eat apple (console) with a old shriveled worm infested apple (PC). The are both apples, but far from equal.

With out problems varies, there is the lovely red ring of death for the earlier xbox units. Everything has its issues.

As to the 3K PC issue, most are far from that now days, just like for consoles most people already have access to a 40" plus screen to plug into. When consoles first came out, the 1K console vs 3K PC was a joke as most either had parts that did not need replacing (PC / monitor ect) where as at the same point in time, most people did not have large screens to connect to, so had to go buy a $2k+ screen. Locally a large 50" at the time was closer to $5K. Things have not changed greatly. Heck, my PC I purchased a few years before the current generation of consoles came out was still powerful enough to play the ported games. So while consolers upgraded with up to $1K costs, I was still using a few year old pc ($0), and that was only a $1K buy. Comparing on cost alone is pointless.

as to the 3% improvement, that is part of why I see this current generation of PCs and consoles going to last a long time. Intel's push for portable/low power consumption is going to kill any desire/need to upgrade. Though to be fare, the PC was already starting to stagnate due to the previous consoles deemed "good enough" for gaming, so gaming ports killed any gaming push on the PC side.

Perhaps in 10 years, I'll be building my own server/render farm instead of a desktop the way things are going.

I have been toying with the idea of similar for well over 10 years as the individual PC was plenty fast enough. The only thing stopping me was that besides rendering, splitting the load between multiple systems did not help with anything else I would do.

Even the thin client approach seemed pointless as most devices would not give enough benefits over a dedicated system to be worth having. The last time I checked, you can buy basic lower powered NUC like devices that work better than the more expensive Thin clients. The thin might give access to better rear end rendering, but most of that is lost with the limited bandwidth available. And you still need the terminal server software that just does not work for the home market. Then you have the issue that any light loads that these units could have been used for 5 years ago, are now all done with phones or cheap tablets with far better accessibility.

As shady28 posted in another thread.

This essentially means all the money gets drained out of hardware R&D.

About the only thing I see coming from this current trend is better solutions for clustering of hardware / home cloud solutions. Have some old phones around, just plug them in via USB or wireless and instant cluster. What you want/can do with this in the end though will be the issue, bout one has to come before the other (hardware/software).

 

[RussianSensation]

The death of the pc.

New kids are growing up with xbones/ps4's who game on the 40-50" tv's who think of PC gaming as prehistoric. Mom's and grannies who can use there $100 tablet to do everything there desktop can do but much more conveniently.

And as people stated earlier, there is no "killer app". PC gaming evolved the industry for us.

What's dying is the low-end and average/mid-range OEM PCs.

We need to be able to distinctly separate DIY Enthusiast PC gaming market (our forum), high-end gaming overall and the rest of the PC sales.

(1) High end CPU sales

Let's start off with the high-end CPU sales - they have never been better:

“While there were year-over-year declines in desktop and notebook volume, we saw record Core desktop mix due to growth in the high-end segment and record Core i7 mix overall for the PC business,” said Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel, during the company’s quarterly conference call with investors and financial analysts.

It is noteworthy that Intel enjoyed great sales of higher-end desktop microprocessors during the quarter. According to the company, desktop platform sales were down 22 per cent year-over-year, but average selling prices of desktop products were up six per cent, a clear indicator that the company sold a lot of Core i7 products for desktops. By contrast, sales of notebook components were down 11 per cent YoY, ASPs dropped two per cent YoY."
Kit-Guru

In other words, the enthusiast i7 segment is thriving, which includes i7 4790K, X99 i7s, etc.

(2) Steam - fastest growing PC gaming community

Consoles wished they grew this fast in terms of gamers. While I realize that not everyone who has a steam account is an active gamer, there is no denying that looking at Steam, PC gaming membership has never been better:

And if people thought this was just a peak, no, it's exploding even in 2015:

"Steam has over 125 million active users, 8.9M concurrent peak"

So PC gaming went from 44M to 125M Steam accounts in less than 5 years.

(3) PC Software Sales - Record high

"The Open Gaming Alliance (OGA) has forecasted in a preview of its upcoming annual research report (via MCV) that PC gaming will continue to grow. PC gaming software is an expanding market worldwide, expected to increase from $26 billion in 2014 to $35 billion by 2018." ~ Source

By 2016, it is projected that there will be 330M active/core PC gamers (that's HUGE), with even higher record PC software sales.

Yes, it is true that on a % basis, PC isn't pulling its weight as far as software sales go when we look at the total # of core PC gamers, but PC software sales are still pretty substantial on a % basis for major publishers.

(4) Relative size of PC Gaming Hardware as a whole dwarfs any other segment in gaming

As of 2014, the PC hardware market was bigger than tablets + smartphones combined. "Gaming hardware market worth $67 billion in 2014, PCs dominate."

It's a false assumption to correlate PC hardware sales with PC gaming hardware sales. They do not need to be correlated. Furthermore, since the software is lagging so much behind hardware, we are seeing a longer life-cycle between GPU replacements but this has not negatively impacted the growth of (1) PC gamers/members entering PC gaming space; (2) PC software game sales.

What's shrinking is the non-gaming 56% portion PC Revenue/Sales. "The JPR analysis suggests the biggest chunk of gaming PC revenue — somewhere in the vicinity of 44 percent — comes from the so-called enthusiast segment, which the researchers identify as "very performance and style oriented, much like sports car owners.""

As far as our enthusiast PC DIY segment is concerned, unless prices of CPUs/GPUs keep rising out of control, the non-gaming PC Revenue could continue declining for all we care. If more enterprise customers keep buying i7s and Tesla/Quadro GPUs, thus allowing Intel/NV to keep increasing revenues/keep margins high and providing us with reasonably priced high-end CPU/GPUs, that's all that matters. If most people in the world don't want a traditional desktop PC, that would not necessarily stop the PC Gaming Hardware from growing. Think of our DIY enthusiast PC gaming segment as after-market parts for Car & Tuning market segment. The overall car market does not need to correlate to the Car Tuning segment -- they might or might not correlate. Similarly, non-gaming PC hardware sales could be bombing but PC Gaming hardware sales could be growing annually. If the report does not accurately separate PC sales from PC gaming hardware sales, any subsequent conclusions from overall PC sales towards overall PC gaming hardware are just guesstimates based on no empirical data to support them.

While PC software sales could do a lot better on a % basis relative to consoles given the massive PC gamer install base, to suggest that PC gaming and overall PC gaming hardware is in a massive decline by using data from the entire PC market which incorporates the declining OEM sales of BestBuy-style pre-built laptops/desktops is not an accurate way to isolate the key variables we are trying to measure.

Finally, because software is behind hardware and current consoles are so underpowered, it'll just take a bit longer for gamers to upgrade their GPUs but they will do so eventually in waves.

--

And honestly, diving deeper into the fundamentals, companies like Intel aren't stupid:

"Leading PC microprocessor manufacturer, Intel will announce its Q3 2015 earnings on October 13th. We expect growth in the quarter to be driven by continued strength in the data center, Internet-of-Things (IoT) and NAND businesses. Despite deriving over 60% of its revenue from the PC market, Intel INTC +0.00% has done a good job weathering the impact of sluggish PC sales, as the company continues to transform and diversify its business. The data center, IoT and NAND segments accounted for almost 40% of Intel’s revenue and more than 70% of the overall operating profit in Q2 2015."

It's also possible that Q3 2015 is an unusually bad quarter and things could become better in Q4 2015 and beyond as explained here.

Intel has already given its outlook for increased 4-5% revenue in 4QFY15. So really, even if the general PC sales decline, it's unlikely that this will have any negative affect on the DIY PC market segment, specifically it won't suddenly mean Intel raising prices on i5 and i7 K series CPUs through the roof. Since NV/AMD are already bifurcating a generation and effectively increased prices by 50-100% in each respective market segment starting with HD7970/GTX680 series in 2012, it's not as if something dramatic is likely to happen in the GPU space either. So, let's all breathe and calm down -- PC gaming hardware and PC gaming software sales aren't in a state of apocalypse.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's a false assumption to correlate PC hardware sales with PC gaming hardware sales.

That's pretty insightful, RS. Thanks.

As far as our enthusiast PC DIY segment is concerned, unless prices of CPUs/GPUs keep rising out of control, the non-gaming PC Revenue could continue declining for all we care. If more enterprise customers keep buying i7s and Tesla/Quadro GPUs, thus allowing Intel/NV to keep increasing revenues/keep margins high and providing us with reasonably priced high-end CPU/GPUs, that's all that matters. If most people in the world don't want a traditional desktop PC, that would not necessarily stop the PC Gaming Hardware from growing. Think of our DIY enthusiast PC gaming segment as after-market parts for Car & Tuning market segment. The overall car market does not need to correlate to the Car Tuning segment -- they might or might not correlate. Similarly, non-gaming PC hardware sales could be bombing but PC Gaming hardware sales could be growing annually. If the report does not accurately separate PC sales from PC gaming hardware sales, any subsequent conclusions from overall PC sales towards overall PC gaming hardware are just guesstimates based on no empirical data to support them.

While PC software sales could do a lot better on a % basis relative to consoles given the massive PC gamer install base, to suggest that PC gaming and overall PC gaming hardware is in a massive decline by using data from the entire PC market which incorporates the declining OEM sales of BestBuy-style pre-built laptops/desktops is not an accurate way to isolate the key variables we are trying to measure.

 

[ALIVE]

What?
Consoles works cause 1. They're multifunctional livingroom appliances that integrates seamlessly with your TV and 2. Fixed hardware spec for n years. And "pc" is allready in the consoles, as in x86, both ps4 and xb1. If anything we could hope that the next xbox will continue to be an x86 part and run some level of windows10 so we'll have a crossover there.
(the steambox was a candidate to rival the classic consoles though)

exactly my points
because gamers they do not the problem with the pc
they just want to power up and play

i was referring to what pc gaming industry should have done if they wanted more people but as long hardware software live in their own parallel dream worlds pc gaming will never be appealing to the mass people.

 

[jpiniero]

The data center, IoT and NAND segments accounted for almost 40% of Intel’s revenue and more than 70% of the overall operating profit in Q2 2015."

This is misleading due to the contra-revenue.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Hmmm, so people are finally figuring out it is a better deal to spend 1000.00 on a powerful desktop or gaming laptop than 1.5 to 2k on at convertible or ultrabook that has mediocre performance to begin with and throttles like crazy. Makes sense to me.

Too bad Intel doesnt really target the segment that is providing the most stable sales, and instead gives us hopped up notebook chips and server rejects. If AMD ever becomes competitive in the high end, perhaps Intel will be forced to devote a bit more effort to this segment as well.

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMD isn't targeting desktop either. Its server and mobile.

 

[Arachnotronic]

This is misleading due to the contra-revenue.

This statement is misleading because most of Intel's mobile operating losses aren't due to contra-revenue

 

[Arachnotronic]

Hmmm, so people are finally figuring out it is a better deal to spend 1000.00 on a powerful desktop or gaming laptop than 1.5 to 2k on at convertible or ultrabook that has mediocre performance to begin with and throttles like crazy. Makes sense to me.

Depends on your usage model. The Ultrabook probably has very good battery life, a very sharp/beautiful screen, and is quite portable. Gaming desktops and laptops simply offer a different set of trade offs.

Too bad Intel doesnt really target the segment that is providing the most stable sales, and instead gives us hopped up notebook chips and server rejects. If AMD ever becomes competitive in the high end, perhaps Intel will be forced to devote a bit more effort to this segment as well.

Hopped up notebook chips and server rejects actually hit what gaming desktops need pretty well

 

[AtenRa]

This statement is misleading because most of Intel's mobile operating losses aren't due to contra-revenue

So what is the cause for the losses ??

 

[Arachnotronic]

So what is the cause for the losses ??

Operating Income = [(Gross Margin %)*Revenue] - Operating Expenses.

In the case of Intel's mobile group, Gross Margin % is very low (it's actually negative) because the current mobile product lineup is basically garbage (think of gross margin % as a measure of competitiveness), revenue is low basically because of the contra-revenue and the fact that aside from the parts that require contra-revenue Intel really isn't selling anything worthwhile in mobile, and operating expenses in this case are quite high because Intel is funding an entire R&D pipeline of products.

Contra-revenue is good for ~$1 billion of the $4.2 billion loss seen in 2014. The rest of it is due to the fact that Intel is funding the development of future products without having anything decent to sell in the meantime.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well, it is the chicken vs egg situation. Unfortunately, Intel has no competition in the high end desktop, so we get what we get (or what they feel like letting trickle down to us).

If they made hyperthreading more available in all lines, or offered more cores, or standard edram/bigger cache, games might be designed to use the extra processing power. I just hate seeing intel give second fiddle to what they are best at (high performance) while dumping billions per year trying to buy off the mobile segment and making no progress or actually falling further behind every year.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Well, it is the chicken vs egg situation. Unfortunately, Intel has no competition in the high end desktop, so we get what we get (or what they feel like letting trickle down to us).

We get what Intel thinks we're willing to pay for.

 

[Hugo Drax]

The future is dumb terminals and gadgets/phones connecting to timesharing systems in the cloud. All the processing and data storage is in the cloud. Funny how the cycle is going full circle.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well, that sounds great, but you have to have universal, reliable, fast internet without bandwidth limitations. Business might be able to provide this, but consumers, it could be a long time away or never. I pay through the nose for DSL, and it is both slow and unreliable. There is also the issue of cloud security.

 

[ALIVE]

Well, that sounds great, but you have to have universal, reliable, fast internet without bandwidth limitations. Business might be able to provide this, but consumers, it could be a long time away or never. I pay through the nose for DSL, and it is both slow and unreliable. There is also the issue of cloud security.

i prefer to isolate myself but all this cloud is bulshit
if for 1 reason you do not have Internet or net is bad then you will not be able to use a computer?

not to mention that your files will be in someone else's hard drive.
bye bye privacy

thats the only reason they push it so hard
because you volunteer not to have any privacy

 

[Ranulf]

Strong dollar and no new software worth buying for. Not a surprise.

If the software industry doesn't change, then we can kiss performance parts goodbye and say hello to gadget type devices.

As shady28 posted in another thread.

This essentially means all the money gets drained out of hardware R&D.

Oh hogwash with that picture. Give me a damn cell phone that doesn't take 1+ minute to boot, that can handle surfing the web for two years or more and I'll take it seriously. Especially if they want me to pay $400+ for that smart phone that does everything every two years. The tech isn't here yet and I'll believe it when I see it. Yes, plugging your phone into a dock for desktop work is nice and will have its place but it is not going to replace real PC's.