When I walk into realestate offices I see laptops now. When I walk into a lot of businesses it's laptops. My Mom's house has changed over to laptops a while back. Now her husband has changed over to an ipad and retired his windows 8 laptop. He has a keyboard for it and can't be happier. My mom actually mostly uses her phone most the time. Kids don't want PC's it's mostly done on their phones or tablets.
And they pay twice the price they would be paying with a desktop, all because of their precious mobility.
You know why? Because they are not geeks.
The single most important reason the desktop is NOT dying is because we have the laptops and we have the tablets and smartphones and all that: they allow the desktop to live on in the hands of the people that actually need performance and power and, in the end, good value for their money. The same people that, ten years ago, didn't know what an internet was are the same people that today DO NOT use a desktop computer.
That's a good think in my book. I don't want them dumbing down my desktop, because I use it and I need it.
In all my jobs there was an almost exclusive usage of desktop computers: more price effective, cheaper to maintain, more usable, more upgradable.
In my university 90% of the machines were desktop computers: same as the above, plus it removed the hassle of booking a laptop (which you could do, but you didn't cause why bother when you had the desktop computers?).
In my home I have my desktop that I've maintained for 10 years now and for much less money than I would have a laptop, at much better performance levels. We do have an old laptop for my sis, as work horse, but we'll be scrapping that in the near future, in favor of an i3 desktop that I will be building for 600... Equivalent to 800-900 laptops.
Of course over at my grandmother's house they own 3 different laptops and a tablet. They spend more than 500 a year on average and have terribly slow machines, by any standard, they use to store photos, browse the web and catch viruses.
I understand where you're coming from, much in the same way I understand why the people in my grandmother's house spend so much for so little benefit. But it's two worlds apart. It's like claiming that the television is dying because people are going to the gym more often (in reference to couch potatoes vs trim fit hipsters)...
The one has nothing to do with the other!
Eventually the phones will be so powerful you'll just wirelessly connect to your TV or a separate keyboard and screen and do everything you need.
Sorry to break it to you, but that's a desktop computer for all means and purposes. If you are tied down to a desk, it's a desktop.
At some point too it's going to get to expensive to make enthusiasts PC parts since it won't trickle down anywhere to midrange owners that don't exist by then. The laws of volume/price will be gone. You'll probably be buying server parts or something for the diehards.
Haven't we always been buying server parts anyway? I fail to understand your argument here. The prices have never been lower, and PC gaming is shifting for sure, but the new generation of consoles bodes well for the PC graphics market, and that, in the end, gaming, is what will dictate if the PC dies or lives. It has always been that, year after year.
It's all about gaming.