News PC sales down in US and Europe

PC sales decline by around 5 per cent in US and Europe, while sales in Asia boom.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/07/14/pc-sales-down-in-us-and-europe/1

 

Could it be that 3 year old technology is still more than adequate for most users? Negating the need to upgrade?

 

+1

 

+2.

Hardware hasn't aged as badly these past few years, there's no pressing need to upgrade yet. Couple that with reduced spending and you've got an answer right there.

 

The revolution and magic has arrived.

Everybody is buying Mac's.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

Reduced spending. +1
people are making do with old tech like you say, because its a luxury item. You don't need huge power to get on facebook.
I also think more people are buying pad-type devices as a second "pc" instead.
I.e. if I was getting a second PC 2 years ago, it would be a laptop. Now it would be a tablet.

 

+1

 

This is the type of cyber-luddite opinions that hold back progress.
I challenge you to play Crysis 2 on a 3 year old relic. And low settings do not count.

Any gamer knows that his system has a 18 month lifespan, much less for graphic cards.

-.

.-

 

People are using smartphones for surfing and email, in addition the economy is tanking, so people think they should cut back, when in reality if they all spent more it would help the economy.

 

Games are what drive me to buy new PCs as everything else I can do for the most part. So considering my 3-year old Gateway FX laptop can still play today's games just fine at seemingly high settings I have no reason to purchase another PC, probably not until the next consoles release and force developers to utilize the newest game engines and fully utilize the latest hardware.

 

strange.. in denmark its going up!

 

The second I used the word 'magic' should have alerted you to my sarcasm

 

Note that he said '3 year old technology is still more than adequate for MOST users'. Most users want to use a PC to go on Facebook and play farmville and other flash based browser games, not triple A titles, that's why they have a console.

 

3 year old tech is perfectly adequate for me thanks, I've no desire to join in the willy-wangling contest that is Crysis 2. My current system plays everything I need it to at decent settings 2048*1536. I could do with an upgraded graphics card, but that's a couple of hundred quid I don't have spare just at the mo.

 

People who talk about playing Crisis or doing other stuff requiring modern rigs totally fail to see what over 90% of people use their PC for...

Let's face it, the majority simply doesn't need most recent hardware to enjoy some browser-games, write letters or whatever. All these things can be done on 5 year old hardware just as good and in times where the economy is struggling, people simply don't think about doing unnecessary upgrades.

Energy-efficiency is the key to sell new hardware in the allready saturted EU and US. Develop PCs with current performance but with 30-50% less power-consumption and people will buy a new rig in times where your electric bill increases every year.

 

Sorry, had a rant about a quote above which i think was uncalled for. Everyone is allowed their opinion. Despite how misguided it is.

 

spent a bit recently.. had to try out that logitec m310 wireless mouse (supposed to last a year on one battery) and bought a couple of video cards- which then needed a power supply for the old rig =E it all started when I needed a new keyboard because of my girl and her wild water adventures- took it apart, cleaned it all up and it would still stick on certain keys after

far as I know microsoft makes the only keyboards that work underwater.. it snowballs.. I don't think hardware manufacturers have much to worry about- or maybe consoles have taken over

 

Plus who knows how much the Sandy Bridge B2 chipset fiasco affected the whole thing. Considering there was a 2 month window where Sandy Bridge stuff was not selling, or selling hard, it is surprising that it didn't fell more.

 

You'll find that graphics cards have barely progressed over the last 18 months. My 2GB 5870 is more than adequate for everything that I play, across 3 monitors.