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PC shipments showed record decline in Q4 2015

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X

Xis

Member
PC sales overall are down, but sales of pre-built gaming PCs are growing:

Pricey gaming desktops and laptops thrive in slumping PC market

PC shipments totaled 71.9 million units during the fourth quarter last year, declining by 10.6 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a study released by IDC on Tuesday.

But high-end gaming PCs are the fastest-growing segment alongside all-in-one PCs, IDC analysts said.

Intel last week estimated that gamers refresh PCs roughly every two years. It also estimated that enthusiast gaming PC shipments are growing at about 26 percent per year.
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http://www.computerworld.com/articl...and-laptops-thrive-in-slumping-pc-market.html
 
C

chrominance

Member
Hektor said:
Any evidence to support that?
Click to expand...

I went looking because I was curious. This is the best data I could find from a quick Google search. It suggests that the top 3 graphics card makers sold about 12 million cards in all of 2014. Q4 2015 saw 71.9 million PCs sold. Assuming the worst case, that's 280 million PCs in 2015.

I don't know if the graphics card figures include cards sold to OEMs for inclusion in pre-built machines or not, but even assuming they're all sold to retail customers, 12 million is basically a big drop in the bucket--not nothing, but certainly not a majority of the potential market for PC games.

How many of those 280 million PCs are used for gaming? I couldn't tell you. The Steam stats probably shed more light but those only offer percentages, not absolute numbers (and it never will, since it's data extrapolated from an opt-in survey). It wouldn't be a ridiculous proposition to suggest most of those computers never go anywhere near a game (especially since office leases probably account for a significant portion of the 280 million), but in terms of total percentages your guess is probably as bad as anyone else's unless someone else can dig up some data.

EDIT: ooops, Elandyll totally beat me to the punch. They already posted the source article upon which my link is based!
 
1

1st Course

Member
Elandyll said:
Hopefully Digitimes will provide an update for the 2015 Graphic Card sales, like they did last year.

Hint: the PC high end videogame market isn't nearly as big as some think it is, and sales shrank 10% in 2014 (the main explanation given for the 2013 boost and subsequent 2014 drop being the rise and fall of bitcoin data mining)

http://digitimes.com/news/a20150126PD204.html

According to them, the top 3 (Asus, Gigabyte and MSI) selling a combined 12m cards in 2014. The top end cards reprenting about 10% of that it seems.

Last year's article was published on the 26th of January, so let's hope we'll see an update shortly.
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Thanks for the data.
 
B

bathsalts

Member
71 mil units, PS4 demolished and sitting at kids table forever. #4theSpreadSheeters #UnprecedentedOfficeLineup #GameChanger #ThankYouDell.
 
Q

Quonny

Member
To say this has no impact on PC gaming is ridiculous. To say this has any meaningful impact on PC gaming is equally ridiculous. We just don't know the numbers. I bet there are a good number of people who buy pre-built PCs for League, WoW, etc, but that doesn't impact Steam and the like in the way some people think. And clearly Steam users are on the rise.

Basically, ayyyyyy.
 
B

BomberMouse

Member
I know we don't have hard numbers, I find it funny that people think this decline means people are building more PCs instead of simply opting to not have a computer.
 
U

UnemployedVillain

Member
Terbinator said:
The thing with the survey is that CPUs with HT only have their native cores measured, which is fine, but in terms of measuring pure hardware grunt I'd say actual computing power out there in the gaming community could be quite inaccurate.
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Yeahhh. Those aren't always reliable. My laptop had dual graphics cards and the non-generic one was never detected on canirunit so it was never accurate.
 
H

HooYaH

Member
PC Gaming Software may be strong, but hardware has been stagnant for a while. Intel hasn't done flip flops with their performance over the years and GPU has slowly increased in performance YOY. If you bought built a Gaming PC today, it can probably last for 3-4 years.

I bet out of custom built PC, about 0.05% upgrade every part on a yearly basis. Not to mention as nvidia is profitable and growing, AMD are on their last legs and declining no matter what they are doing.
 
Vigilant Walrus

Vigilant Walrus

Member
It makes sense. In the past people had to upgrade more often due to harddrives being the factor that made computers unbearable slow. With SSDs PCs are a lot snappier for longer due to it being flash and not spinning plates.
Longer PC lifecycles is a good thing:)
 
S

Shari

Member
tuxfool said:
Maybe he is embarrassed? He certainly looks foolish.
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You dont know much about trolling in the internets, right? System wars kids do not feel embarrasment. You can't feel it when you are permanently in that state.

texhnolyze said:
It's even more funny that the mods let him get away with that every time.
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This is something that is totally beyond me, he must be a friend of someone.
 
H

Hyun Sai

Member
Elandyll said:
Hopefully Digitimes will provide an update for the 2015 Graphic Card sales, like they did last year.

Hint: the PC high end videogame market isn't nearly as big as some think it is, and sales shrank 10% in 2014 (the main explanation given for the 2013 boost and subsequent 2014 drop being the rise and fall of bitcoin data mining)

http://digitimes.com/news/a20150126PD204.html

According to them, the top 3 (Asus, Gigabyte and MSI) selling a combined 12m cards in 2014. The top end cards reprenting about 10% of that it seems.

Last year's article was published on the 26th of January, so let's hope we'll see an update shortly.
Click to expand...

This is the only thing I found for 2015 I don't know if it's accurate.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...op-graphics-cards-hit-10-year-low-in-q2-2015/

JPR claims that while the market of desktop AIBs is shrinking, sales of expensive graphics cards used by gamers are increasing.
“However, in spite of the overall decline, somewhat due to tablets and embedded graphics, the PC gaming momentum continues to build and is the bright spot in the AIB market,” said Jon Peddie, the head of JPR.
Click to expand...
 
V

viHuGi

Banned
-Pyromaniac- said:
no

they just aren't buying PCs. They're buying tablets (and by tablets I mean ipads) and macs. Or just using their phones.

That's about it. And people are absolutely kidding themselves if they think most pc gaming isn't done on prebuilt pcs. You think those zillions of Dota/LoL/etc players are playing on PCs they built? lulz
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Hahahaha really people these days, most people play on laptops.
 
A

airborn

Member
-Pyromaniac- said:
they just aren't buying PCs. They're buying tablets (and by tablets I mean ipads) and macs. Or just using their phones.
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Tablet sales have also declined on an annualized basis.

People are holding onto their devices much longer. There's no point in buying new hardware every twelve months if you are using it to browse the web or use Office. A free upgrade to Windows 10 was never going to help sales either.
 
S

ShadowSoldier89

Member
w0s said:
I have to think this isn't actually true. Most gamer's aren't enthusiast and might by a card and just put it in their system but I can't imagine that the majority of pc gamers build their PCs from scratch. Definitely isn't true in my circle of friends (YMMV) even though a few of us build our PCs from scratch the majority bought a gaming prebuilt pc.
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every PC gamer I know is using a custom built PC, thats 12. Thats anecdotal as fuck but thats still 0 prebuilts out of 17 people.

These people didnt all build their own, but they are all built
 
S

SparkTR

Member
BomberMouse said:
I know we don't have hard numbers, I find it funny that people think this decline means people are building more PCs instead of simply opting to not have a computer.
Click to expand...

As far as your average consumer (business or home) is concerned, they're most likely perfectly fine with current desktop or laptop from the past decade.

As far as gaming is concerned, there are indeed more people buying and building PCs to game now than at any other point in history without a doubt.
 
Q

QaaQer

Member
Felix Lighter said:
I'd love to hear your analysis. Do you think PC gaming is declining along side the prebuilt PC market?
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I have no clue.

I really don't know how you would go about measuring these things. Do you include people who pay MS $10 per year to play solitaire or candy crush addicts? Or is it only people who buy stuff from steam with discrete gpus? Moreover, this article is about hardware and I do not know how hardware numbers translate into end users given the death of Moore.
 
N

Netherscourge

Banned
Pre-built vs. Custom is irrelevant.

It's about software sales ultimately.

PC games are not selling as well as console games and never really have.

Plus - Microsoft ain't making much off of Windows 10 because it's a free upgrade through next summer.

So, I would say things are definitely alarming for the PC gaing industry.
 
V

viky101

Neo Member
I reckon the reputation of Windows 10 as a buggy mess has a lot to with it. I know people who went Mac because of Windows 10 issues. Just recently one of my friends were venting on Facebook about how Windows 10 was slow, annoying and constantly updating and she should have gotten a Macbook instead.

People started getting annoyed with 8 and Microsoft has only made things worse with 10 imo. So much so that MS has to force Windows 10 down people's throats via stealth updates and such. When people don't even want your new Operating System for free you know you've got a problem.

Not to mention OEM and thier shit tier bloatware and McAfee that makes the computer slower than it is.
 
P

patapuf

Member
Skux said:
People will buy the most cost effective thing to suit their needs, and for most non-gamers, that's a laptop, tablet or smartphone, rather than a prebuilt PC, which is often overpriced anyway.
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I think it's more true that all these devices outside of smartphones last a lot longer than they used to.

Tablet sales are in heavy decline as well. If you do strictly work your OS is probably more important than the machine it's running on by now. Rather than buy a new machine, you simply upgrade the OS.

Even gaming PC's (though that segment is growing) last a lot longer than they used to. Unless you bought yours at the start of last gen, you still don't really need to upgrade.

Netherscourge said:
Pre-built vs. Custom is irrelevant.

It's about software sales ultimately.

PC games are not selling as well as console games and never really have.

Plus - Microsoft ain't making much off of Windows 10 because it's a free upgrade through next summer.

So, I would say things are definitely alarming for the PC industry.
Click to expand...

a) if they never have sold well, why is it worrying?
b) the PC software market is steadily growing and emerging markets are overwhelmingly PC focused. What is there to worry about?
 
Shai-Tan

Shai-Tan

Banned
Shari said:
Feels funny because his modus operandi is always exactly the same, comes, drops the bomb and leaves.

Edit: It's worth noting that without this shit threads we wouldnt have this hilarious threads, so its all worth it in the end, like PlayStation™
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maybe he's got stuff to do. not everyone sticks around after they post
 
E

epmode

Member
Good thing I have a PS4. Gotta have something to fall back on when PCs die in the next two or three years.

#gamechanger
 
H

Horsemama1956

Member
HooYaH said:
PC Gaming Software may be strong, but hardware has been stagnant for a while. Intel hasn't done flip flops with their performance over the years and GPU has slowly increased in performance YOY. If you bought built a Gaming PC today, it can probably last for 3-4 years.

I bet out of custom built PC, about 0.05% upgrade every part on a yearly basis. Not to mention as nvidia is profitable and growing, AMD are on their last legs and declining no matter what they are doing.
Click to expand...

Of course it's stagnet, there isn't much reason for better hardware. Very small minority of PC gamers and people in general that want or care about mega high end graphics and not many developers that are going to be able to bring it them.

Basic general pcmuse doesn't really need more than a Core 2 Duo. Of course people aren't buying PCs any more like they used too.
 
A

Atraveller

Banned
Interfectum said:
He posts in a lot of PS4 and console related threads. You post in a lot of Steam threads. Seems both are biased and see agendas.
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Yeah ok.
viHuGi said:
Ps4 exclusives - best graphics and best exclusives.

Pc multis - best graphics, no AAA exclusives, most great games also come on Consoles, on PC you can't play Uncharted, God of War, Halo, Forza and usually some of the best games that will come this gen etc...

Xbox One - best online shooters that you won't be able to play anywhere else.

So my opinion :

Want F2P/cheap games? Pc

Want amazing exclusives and all the best games always available on day 1? Console
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W

wazoo

Member
SparkTR said:
Worth noting that that PC you're buying would not be included in this report. It's not prebuilt in the sense that OEM office PCs are prebuilt.
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Many pre-built PC are not considered pre-built by these firms unless the company is multi-million worth at Wall Street, which is only the case for a few selected ones (Acer/Dell/Apple/Asus/etc)

Currently, you can buy a full PC with no effort, completely made, but it will be considered as a collection of pieces by these firms if the company is not known.
 
M

m@cross

Member
I get why the PC fans are defending their gaming platform of choice, but why shit on the PS4 and its fans as part of it? At least shit on everyone else if you must ;p
 
S

Shari

Member
Atraveller said:
Yeah ok.
Click to expand...

pOoP4Ml.png
 
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