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Nail in the coffin?
I mentioned sometime ago that I thought/guessed that PC's are a dieing breed. Current gen consoles were able to keep up pretty well with PC's, next gen will do even better - and tablets/phones will become more powerful... I really think PC's are going the way of the VCR.
http://m.ign.com/articles/2013/04/10/pc-shipments-mark-biggest-decline-in-nearly-20-years
Comments
They will not be replaced in our lifetime.
I don't think a tablet or phone would work for air traffic control, geological surveying, or professional securities trading for example. I don't care if there is an app for that.
Seeing people walking down sidewalks eyes glued to their smartphones is more akin to the zombie apocalypse than an electronics revolution.
As long as you cant:
Game properly
Perform complex calculus and algorithms
Geological Surveys
Programming(properly)
On a mobile platform, PC will exist
And consoles CAN'T keep up with PC technology, hell, this 'next-gen' will already be obsolete in a year or two
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
My worst fear is that Mobile becomes the THING
Jesus no, it makes me remember all those new generation of so-called nerds that only play angry-birds
I hope virtual reality gadgets comes sooner
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
I tend to agree. Besides, I hate playing games on the small ass cell phone screens, and holding something the size of an iPad to your ear would just look wrong.
You also have to consider the possibility that folks, speaking from personal experience, are much more comfortable building and maintaining a machine on their own and upgrading it when needed.
Back in the day there was much of the population buying a PC for the first time,indicating sales... then having no need to buy another one for quite some time because they don't have a need for an upgrade unless the old one broke. Think of the legions of average users, soccer moms and the like, who don't to anything other than Facebook and email, no need to buy a computer ever again unless it goes kaput.
Consider too that many writers just have to push an article out to their editor to make deadline and keep their jobs, so yeah...
I hope the Apple philosophy of upgrading a computer doesn't become the norm.
"Oh, you need a bigger hard drive? Just throw your Mac in the garbage, and buy a new one! It's easy!"
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Listen I'm not for the PC dieing, I just see it in the tea-leaves. I love the PC, I want it to be around - but honestly folks we're a minority. More and more people are abondoning the PC in droves, it used to be a necessity - it is no longer a "need to have".
Regarding consoles, they were never able to keep pace with PC's, I'm 37 so I would know. But this generation of consoles held its ground pretty well... I know that PC's evolve faster, but even with the higher technincal specs, this current gen held its ground. These devices are dedicated for games, all of that power is focused on basically one job.
Just saying is all.
When NASA announces they're no longer going to use computers, but just handle everything required to design and launch manned space missions using their iPhone, then, and only then, will I believe you.
Until then, it's laughable.
Sure, I don't need a PC to browse Facebook, but to think they will just become replaced by phones and tablets is a stunningly simple way of looking at things.
Buy a new brand of tea.
You cannot develop a video game on a gaming console. Even if you could, you would be doing it on inferior hardware that can't be easily upgraded. Without a PC, you will not have video games to play on your gaming console.
The fact that PC sales are low does not indicate that PCs aren't being used. It indicates that PCs are becoming more reliable, powerful, and less necessary to constantly upgrade or replace.
Also, you will have a difficult time developing mobile apps from a cell phone. The popularity of mobile apps only increases the need for PCs... unless you plan on writing code with a virtual touch keyboard on a 4 inch screen.
Probably won't, ever.
We may see computers or computer-like devices becoming increasingly portable, however the modularity and options will probably not decrease, but increase with time - because at the end of the day it is more cost effective to both the consumer and the manufacturer to provide modularity for generic devices to allow customer for whatever functions that they want.
Even PDAs are modular - it is just modular in it's function by going the applications route rather than the hardware route.
If anything the trend seem to indicate the opposite of what the OP says - the delicated system for specific function seems to be a dying breed. With the increasing computing power, there seems to be no need for delicate machines or thin clients - all you need is a low cost client that is powerful enough for customising on the end user level. And with the advent of emulation, VMWare virtualization and other thin clienting applications such as Citrix the need for delicated machines becomes even less necessary. People would want MORE generic devices instead so they can support virtualization and remote clients.
You are very wrong.
People need computers more than ever. Some people might not need direct use of a computer, but most technology they use (video games, smartphones, tablets) is 100% dependent on computers.
The more people who use technology, means more people need computers to develop that technology. I don't care if the technology fits in your pocket, sits on your entertainment center, or hangs on the wall... someone needed a computer to develop that technology.
Many consumers don't need direct use of computers, I'll give you that. But if those consumers wish to use any technology, then they'll be indirectly relying upon the use of computers.
It's equilibrium, as computing power spreads to other formats so games will follow. However as others have pointed out, the PC has features and uniqueness that still merit it as a viable device. The keyboard & mouse combo is still a powerful enough feature to keep gaming on the PC around for a while yet. MMORPGs & God games are difficult to implement well on consoles and they dont look like disappearing any time soon.
First of all, no, mobile devices will not catch desktops in performance, barring some unforeseen revolution in technology. Think transistors replacing vacuum tubes big; the routine advances that give Moore's Law a reprieve for a few more years won't do it.
Mobile devices are limited by power, not transistor count. If power savings continue to scale with die shrinks roughly as it has in recent years, that means that you can double your performance about every four years or so. At that rate, we may see a cell phone with graphics that can match what a GeForce GTX Titan can do today sometime around 2040. It's not likely that Moore's Law will survive that long, as it would require process nodes that manipulate matter at a subatomic level without making the radical chemistry changes that splitting atoms is known to have. Quantum mechanics would wreak havoc well before we get there, anyway.
Furthermore, even that is a highly optimistic view, as even if Moore's Law survives, there is reason to believe that power savings from die shrinks may well slow down. I don't remember the source, but a bigwig at one company that makes mobile chips recently said something to the effect that a straight die shrink to 14 nm would only yield about a 20% power savings as compared to 28 nm, not 50%. If that's accurate and going to be the norm from here on, then cell phones catch today's GeForce GTX Titan sometime around 2100. Even if we could figure out how to make chips that use individual electrons as fully-functional transistors (which isn't likely), Moore's Law wouldn't survive nearly that long.
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But let's ignore that. In fact, for the sake of argument, let's assume that in the near future, cell phones will offer the same performance as desktops, and that it will stay that way forever. Maybe someone discovers some unobtainium with some miracle properties that makes computer chips not burn meaningful amounts of power or some such.
Would that be the end of desktops? Hardly. The desktop form factor offers real advantages.
Some people need to type a lot. For that, there's no substitute for a real, full-sized desktop keyboard. A laptop isn't nearly as good, and a cell phone or pure tablet (as opposed to a detachable) is a complete non-starter.
Some people need a lot of monitor space to get work done. For monitor space, there's no substitute for a desktop with monitors large enough that you can't accidentally misplace and lose them. Or better yet, two or three such monitors.
Some people value reliability. Desktops win by a mile there. Anything that you can do to make a cell phone more reliable, you can also do to make a desktop more reliable. But the opposite is not true; ever try to repair a cell phone that had one component break? Ever drop a desktop case while the computer was running?
While some purposes need mobility, there are also purposes where a lack of mobility is an advantage. Desktops are harder to steal than cell phones, and for some purposes, that matters.
Some people like to use a keyboard and mouse to play games. Ever try doing that on a cell phone? What you can do with games for a cell phone is a lot more limited than for desktops because of the limited input options.
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The declining sales of new desktops are not because no one uses desktops anymore. Rather, they're because fewer people see the need to replace their old desktop by a new one. If desktops last twice as long as they used to and there are the same number in use everywhere, then that will cut new desktop sales in half.
One of the attractions of manufacturing chips for cell phones and tablets is precisely because they have such short lifetimes, which means that buyers need to buy something new once again very often. That's a big deal if you manufacture processors. But from a consumer perspective, it's a reason to stay with desktops.
You have to question what "dying breed" means to the OP.
Here's the context I will see it in, yes what we currently know as a PC is dying very slowly, but only in the contexts of its current form; at some point there will be no distinguishable differences in computational power and usage between a "Console" and a "PC", most notably, "Consoles" will be dead at that point, heh, they will just be PC's in a set form factor, but that's the future, and I will be dead by then so I hope someone keeps the thread alive so I can do the "I Told You So Bit" from the grave.
someone find number of MoBos that asus alone sold for Q1 2013, then tell me if you still think the pc is dying
heres the ones for 2012
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/41-million-motherboards-shipped-2012-were-either-ASUS-or-Gigabyte
the premade pc that large companies sell for a ridicolously high price is dying that for sure, people are getting smarter and not buying those overpriced pieces of junk
May I copy paste this to every thread about this topic I come across in the future? Because I believe you just won this conversation forever.
(Or at least until we see what the future actually holds rather then making silly guesses)
TBH i don't see consoles as the nail in the coffin of PCs, mobiles however? Well depends how you define PC i guess. Lets take a look at the video embedded here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
You know i could totally see that. Some mobiles can already output games at HD, i't would totally make sense to dock them into a station and add keyboard, mice and a big screen to it. Or a TV and a controller, you know instead of a console. Next gen mobile chips will have full opengl 4.2 support includng tessellation at full HD.
So yeah, once you add HIDs and a screen to a phone/tablet the line between it and consoles/PC gets awfully blurry.
So will the PC die? No, not in the foreseeable time. The combination of big screen(thats realtively close), keyboard and mice that most people see as the definition of PC is just too useful. It will hold out at the very least till we get really good voice control, and even then other input devices will remain optional.
Personally i see the future of consoles alot more skeptic though, they are expensive considering you can "only" game with them(contrary to lets say a smartphone) and even the actual games themselves are the most expensive of any platform. They are also mostly closed platforms(access controlled by manufacturer), making them hard to get into for smaller game companies. And all of their precious power is wasted once game streaming enters the picture(The game gets rendered on a serverfarm, you only need to be able to playback the HD stream that gets send to you, we are talking about a 50$ hardware investment here...).
The way things are going the low game prices on iOS and android have already pretty much hurt the console manufacturers(think psp etc), once you get to add a big screen and a controller to the phone/tablet ... Give them them a further generation or two and they will have plenty of power to handle some really pretty gfx all the while boasting content prices in the single digits.
i was just thinking businesses will replace PC and laptops with xbox and playstations. And Wiis for the janitors to sweep the floor with wiimotes.
Same here. We have an Xbox 360, PS3 and WII U sitting under our TV, and we use the xbox for hulu, and the ps3 for netflix and blu rays. Other than that they collect dust because we game on our PC's 99% of the time.
i use my xbox and ps3 to play video games. I personally dont need or use any other services in my gaming consoles. Thats just me. Need netflix? my pc, need netflix on a livingroom TV? my laptop hooked to the tv. Again, thats just me.
I bought myself a Raspberry Pi and installed xbmc on it. So much awesome for so few monies. It holds all my music and movies and shares them over network all the while being hooked up to my TV and being able to playback internet streams and browsing our local TV stations content media storage. Oh and i can actually control it with my TVs remote, the signal gets send back over the HDMI cable apparently(cause you know, the thing has no infrared receiver).
I mean is that a PC? It certainly is. But damn 35$ is not alot of money, you don't even get a crappy nfs server for that.