HP Compaq TC1100
Posted on 11/04/2007 5:27:02 AM PST by decimon
TOKYO - Masaya Igarashi wants $200 headphones for his new iPod Touch, and he's torn between Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles. When he has saved up again, he plans to splurge on a digital camera or flat-screen TV. There's one conspicuous omission from the college student's shopping list: a new computer.
The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles, digital video recorders with terabytes of memory.
"A new PC just isn't high on my priority list right now," said Igarashi, shopping at a Bic Camera electronics shop in central Tokyo, who said his three-year-old desktop was "good for now."
"For the cost, I'd rather buy something else," he said.
Japan's PC market is already shrinking, leading analysts to wonder whether Japan will become the first major market to see a decline in personal computer use some 25 years after it revolutionized household electronics - and whether this could be the picture of things to come in other countries.
"The household PC market is losing momentum to other electronics like flat-panel TVs and mobile phones," said Masahiro Katayama, research group head at market survey firm IDC.
Overall PC shipments in Japan have fallen for five consecutive quarters, the first ever drawn-out decline in PC sales in a key market, according to IDC. The trend shows no signs of letting up: In the second quarter of 2007, desktops fell 4.8 percent and laptops 3.1 percent.
NEC's and Sony's sales have been falling since 2006 in Japan. Hitachi Ltd. said Oct. 22 it will pull out of the household computer business entirely in an effort to refocus its sprawling operations.
"Consumers aren't impressed anymore with bigger hard drives or faster processors. That's not as exciting as a bigger TV," Katayama said. "And in Japan, kids now grow up using mobile phones, not PCs. The future of PCs isn't bright."
PC makers beg to differ, and they're aggressively marketing their products in the countries where they're seeing the most sales growth - places where residents have never had a PC. The industry is responding in two other ways: reminding detractors that computers are still essential in linking the digital universe and releasing several laptops priced below $300 this holiday shopping season.
And, though sales in the U.S. are slowing too, booming demand in the developing world is expected to buoy worldwide PC shipments 11 percent to an all-time high of 286 million in 2007. And, outside Japan, Asia is a key growth area, with second-quarter sales jumping 21.9 percent this year.
Hitachi had already stopped making PCs for individual consumers since releasing this year's summer models, although the Tokyo-based manufacturer will keep making some computers for corporate clients. Personal computers already accounted for less than 1 percent of Hitachi's annual sales.
It's clear why consumers are shunning PCs.
Millions download music directly to their mobile devices, and many more use their handsets for online shopping and to play games. Digital cameras connect directly to printers and high-definition TVs for viewing photos, bypassing PCs altogether. Movies now download straight to TVs.
More than 50 percent of Japanese send e-mail and browse the Internet from their mobile phones, according to a 2006 survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The same survey found that 30 percent of people with e-mail on their phones used PC-based e-mail less, including 4 percent who said they had stopped sending e-mails from PCs completely.
The fastest growing social networking site here, Mobagay Town, is designed exclusively for cell phones. Other networking sites like mixi, Facebook and MySpace can all be accessed and updated from handsets, as can the video-sharing site YouTube.
And while a lot of the decline is in household PCs, businesses are also waiting longer to replace their computers partly because recent advances in PC technology are only incremental, analysts say.
At a consumer electronics event in Tokyo in October, the mostly unpopular stalls showcasing new PCs contrasted sharply with the crowded displays of flat-panel TVs.
"There's no denying PCs are losing their spunk in Japanese consumers' eyes," said Hiroyuki Ishii, a sales official at Japan's top PC maker, NEC Corp. "There seems to be less and less things only a PC can do," Ishii said. "The PC's value will fade unless the PC can offer some breakthrough functions."
The slide has made PC manufacturers desperate to maintain their presence in Japanese homes. Recent desktop PCs look more like audiovisual equipment - or even colorful art objects - than computers.
Sony Corp.'s desktop computers have folded up to become clocks, and its latest version even hangs on the wall. Laptops in a new Sony line are adorned with illustrations from hip designers like ZAnPon. NEC is trying to make its PCs' cooling fans quieter - to address a common complaint from customers, it says.
Still, sluggish sales weigh on manufacturers.
NEC's annual PC shipments in Japan shrank 6.2 percent to 2.72 million units in 2006, though overall earnings have been buoyed by mobile phone and networking solutions operations. The trend continued in the first quarter of fiscal 2007 when there was a 14 percent decline from a year earlier.
Sony's PC shipments for Japan shrank 10 percent in 2006 from a year earlier. But it isn't about to throw in the towel - yet.
"We feel we've reached a new stage in PC development, where consumers are looking for user-friendly machines to complement other electronics," said Hiroko Nakamura, a Sony official in Tokyo.
Sony's latest PCs, for example, come with a powerful program that can take photos and video clips and automatically edit them into a slideshow set to music.
Even Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Inc., whose computer sales and market share are surging in the U.S., has seen Macintosh unit sales in Japan slip 5 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2007.
There are other reasons Japan is the first market to see PCs shrink, some analysts say.
"We think of Japanese as workaholics, but many don't take work home," said Damian Thong, a technology analyst at Macquarie Bank in Japan. "Once they leave the office, they're often content with tapping e-mails or downloading music on their phones," he said.
As Hitachi's shuttering of its household PC business demonstrates, making PCs has become less attractive. IBM Corp. also left the PC business in 2005, selling its computer unit to China's Lenovo Group Ltd.
But NEC's Ishii is persisting.
"We have to get the message out there that PCs are on top in terms of computing power," he said. "They always will be."
“Hmmm” PING
Not to suprising, my 4 year old WinXP laptop does all the computing my wie and I need. Why upgrade when we do not have to. The tech has gotten faster but not much has changed in 5 years. For what we do (we use Office, quicken, and the internet)we do not need a scorcher of a system.
the desktop pc is a mature product, for what most people use it there isn’t a big difference if your pc is new or 3 yrs old, the pc I use for 80% of what I do at home was a low end pc 4 yrs ago but I can’t see any big benefit of upgrading plus I would get stuck with windows vista and all the headaches that would bring
I’m probably “worse” than you guys. For standard office apps (WP, spreadsheet, etc.) I liked the rom-based machines from Smith Corona, Brother, et.al. I like the idea of a machine dedicated to the internet.
I use the PC a lot at work for word processing and excel and math and statistics programs, but at home? Just e-mail and internet. When an “Iphone” product comes along for $100 and cheap subscription service that is useful for reading FR or other sites, I’ll probably use that more than the computer.
>>he’s torn between Nintendo Co.’s Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 3 game consoles
Why is anyone torn over the PS 3?
At this point in the console war between the 360, WII, and PS3, the PS3 is in last place. It lost quite a few exclusive titles. Many other titles are merely ports from the 360.
Fanboys keep saying “wait until more time has passed and you’ll see the full power of the PS3 in games” Well, many developers are not going to spend the money doing so when so much more money can be made selling a higher volume of cross platform games on the 360, WII, and PC.
Think about it, considering the number of consoles sold (see below), if you had 20 million dollars to invest in developing a game, would you design it exclusively for the PS3? Or would you design it for multiple platforms, and spend less time specializing it for any one console? The PS3 is difficult to program, and this has resulted in many delays in games (as well as problems with the Unreal engine).
Console sales according to nexgenwars.com
Xbox 360:
12,238,647
Wii:
12,318,119
PS3:
5,100,546
The bottom line is very few developers are willing to devote time to making games which push the ps/3 to the limit - most are just making ports for it. For the average consumer, buying a 360 is a much better value, as many of the games are better (PS 3 ports suffer framerate issues - they can’t keep up with the 360) or just as good as their PS3 counterparts.
Admittedly, the PS3 was ahead of its time in many ways, but what doomed it was the fact that the 360 had a one year lead, and the PS3 was simply too expensive. Sony certainly had the fanbase, but made a bad gamble with a system that was simply too expensive for the average person.
Why upgrade when we do not have to. The tech has gotten faster but not much has changed in 5 years.
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PC’s have gotten faster but every time they get faster MS uses every ounce of computing power available and the end result is SAME-SAME compared to machines as far back as 10 years ago ,,, my P233 machine with adequate ram and minimal OS and hang on apps went every bit as fast as my new pc with Vista Premium... If you want fast you’ve got to cut the ties to MS/OS’s and go Linux.
The real question is, what are the demographics for each console, and how many games does the typical user of each console purchase?
Why is anyone torn over the PS 3?
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I don’t do games but perhaps it is that you are looking at it from an American perspective... maybe the available games in Japanese are better for the PS3..
I think what has eroded the Playstation fanclub was people realizing that they were being forced to favor the Bluray while it may very well become the Betamax of the new century. If the PS3 offered to have the DVD player seperate I think things would be much different. I prefer freedom of choice while I have a choice, Sony assumed the Bluray would be the choice.
HP Compaq TC1100
Why would he want to replace a three year old PC? It still surfs the web, it still writes papers, and it still downloads from iTunes.
same here....my wife and I have four. No new one on the horizon.
Bingo.
Double Bingo. That's why I bought a Dell for work. I could get it with XP, and I am certan XP will flawlessly run my CAD program. Even the CAD company was at best 'pretty sure' it would run [knuckled] under vista.
BTW, a synomym for a vista is a look out...
Yea, including Blu Ray and a hard disk simply made this unit too expensive to sell. Even if the PS3 was 10x more powerful than the 360 or WII, it’s just to much.. Price reductions have helped, but really, it’s still too expensive.
Had blu ray been out for a while and production costs were minimal, it might have been a different story. But Sony was using the PS3 to launch blu ray, etc...
IMO, Sony has certainly fallen from the company they used to be. They have produced several technological flops in the past decade... the flopped on the MD player by charging way too much, 8mm video format (which had great audio capability), PSP (an excellent video game system, but way overpriced), laptop batteries (the ones that explode), and the PS3, and probably on blu ray.
Notice how MS axed the 360 without a hard drive - now the minimal model comes with a small flash drive. They were smart by not including a drive in the lower model, as it made it more affordable. Now it seems that eventually, 360 games will require a drive - and during a time when costs to produce the system are dropping.
I’m not a 360 fanboy - it’s too expensive and has it’s own faults - I would have put 4 cores instead of 3, and made sure it didn’t overheat etc. I like the ps3, believe it or not, it’s just too expensive and it’s too late now - though it would make a great linux box. Same with the PSP - a great system that I’d like to own, but it was way overpriced on introduction, and is still to expensive.
IMO, the bottom line is that all 3 systems are too expensive. I just bought a used Gamecube for $39 and am happy with the (used) games, which cost $7 - $20 on average. The PS2 is going to sell for $99 soon, but even that’s too much $$. I think I’d buy a PS2 for $70 though..
And even some games for my PC, such as F.E.A.R, cost a whopping $20 and the gameplay was excellent. I may be alone, but I’m no longer paying top dollar for games or consoles....
>>Sony has certainly fallen from the company they used to be
Oh yea, I forgot to mention the memory stick, another way Sony tried to push a proprietary format on the market... This seems to be their achilles heel, yet they don’t seem to be learning anything from it...
Gateway E 295 C Convertible Notebook
I got myself one of these... amazing piece of technology.
I just bought a miniature PC to connect to the LCD TV. Less than $400. I can PVR HDTV, use it as a mediaserver (ripped movies, music, photos). I will probably buy at least one more for the bigger TV. I could surf on the TV but usually surf with the laptop while the computer serves up TV.
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