Market research giant IDC is reporting a record fall in PC shipments in the last three months of 2015, down 10.6% on the same period the year before. IDC's figures include Macs, but Apple's shipments actually grew 5%—the figures for mass-market stalwarts like Dell, Lenovo and HP are ugly. I know that Dell isn't retailer of choice for gaming rigs, but 'Other' retailers, which includes everyone else, suffered a 21.9% plunge.
Let's not panic, firstly because this was expected to an extent: the launch of Windows 10 got people deliberating when best to upgrade, and those who aren't hoping to run Crysis are increasingly picking up tablets and hybrid abominations. Second, custom PC retailer Origin's Kevin Wasielewski has revealed that the company enjoyed double-digit growth.
IDC doesn't address high-end PCs specifically, but it's also been a quiet year for components, with no new generation of Nvidia GPUs to prompt upgrades and the late arrival of Skylake CPUs pushing purchases back. And in any case, PC gamers are prone to replacing parts over whole PCs.
The IDC's full analysis, complete with "currency fluctuations" and "commercial adoption rates" is yours to peruse. Go nuts.
Thanks, gamesindustry.
Edit: This article has been updated to reflect a Twitter conversation with Kevin Wasielewski.
