Retailer PC shipments for the last quarter are 10.9% down from the previous year, moving only 76 million units compared to the previous year. This is some not-so-good news for the traditional vendors trying to move prepackaged PC hardware to customers. It's not all bad news, though, PC Master Race.
According to Gamespot, research firm Gartner has released some new information on the state of PC hardware sales, and it's not good. The decline follows on the news from earlier this year when IDC reported that there was a 13.9% decline in PC hardware sales, which was attributed by some analysts to Microsoft's less than stellar roll out of Windows 8... an operating system they didn't even trust to use to showcase their Xbox One games at E3.
Nevertheless, Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa stated that...
“We are seeing the PC market reduction directly tied to the shrinking installed base of PCs, as inexpensive tablets displace the low-end machines used primarily for consumption in mature and developed markets,""In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC,"... "This is also accounting for the collapse of the mini notebook market."
That's an interesting look at the situation.
However, keep in mind that this does not reflect the situation of the PC market in regards to video games.
While the standard consumer market of PC hardware is on decline, the actual sales of PC software is still up, with the 2012 $20 billion number to beat out 2011's $18.6 billion.
So this means that we're still seeing the decline of packaged retailer PC hardware to other cheaper options, which makes sense, it will be interesting to see how the end-of-year results look for individual parts manufacturers and whether the trend is to focus on custom PCs over the retailer option.
However, it's not unlikely that we'll continue to see a rise in both mobile and PC gaming over the years as the market becomes more exposed to the software options available on both platforms. I guess the decline in prepackaged PC hardware would also mean that the people getting involved in PC gaming are entirely oriented around core gaming and getting something suited to their needs instead of just paying a lump sum for standardized hardware.
Also, according to some NPD charts, and according to Pricewaterhousecooper, majority of the gaming market is still aimed at skyrocketing to unforeseen heights, despite some declines in the PC hardware department.
