Device Shipments Up 6% To 2.4B In 2013, Driven By Android Smartphones, Tablets Amid More PC Decline

Gartner today has released its latest figures charting its overall predictions for how IT devices — from PCs to mobile handsets — are going to perform this year and in 2014. As in years before, numbers will continue to climb: in 2013, total shipments will rise 5.9% to 2.35 billion, and will rise again in 2014 to 2.5 billion units, driven by portable, often less expensive, but just as powerful mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android will account for just over one-third of all devices this year, and nearly half in 2014. It’s an Android world after all.

But continuing a trend we have been seeing for some time, personal computers — which kicked off the technology love affair for consumers — will not be the hardware reaping the most benefits from that growth. PC shipments will decline this year to 305 million units, Gartner says, before dropping again in 2014 to below 300 million (289 million).

Mobile devices will continue to replace PCs as consumers’ primary computing device, leading with smartphones, which will continue to be the most popular IT device sold. The 1.8 billion units in smartphones that that Gartner estimates will be shipped this year equates to about six times the number of PCs. And while tablets are still far behind both at only 201 million units, they will be growing the fastest, up some 68% on 2012. In comparison, mobile phone growth is 4.3%, actually slower than the overall average of 5.9%. And this is far from being a simple first-world trend or emerging market trend:

“Consumers want anytime-anywhere computing that allows them to consume and create content with ease, but also share and access that content from a different portfolio of products,” writes Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “Mobility is paramount in both mature and emerging markets.”

“Shipments”, as we’ve pointed out before, refers to devices sent to channels for sales. Some analysts use the term interchangeably since these are estimates; and they are an important barometer for how sales are proceeding and users are moving. Indeed, in an example of shipping estimates at work, Gartner notes that the “sharp decline in PC sales recorded in the first quarter was the result in a change in preferences in consumers’ wants and needs, but also an adjustment in the channel to make room for new products hitting the market in the second half of 2013.”

The “ultramobile” group is an odd one and it will be interesting to see how this evolves. This is Gartner’s preferred term for the neither-here-nor-there category of hardware that includes devices like Chromebooks, tablet/PC hybrids and non-traditional “phablets”, and Gartner’s guess is that whatever impact they will have on sales will be to the detriment of tablets rather than PCs or smartphones:

“The increased availability of lower priced basic tablets, plus the value add shifting to software rather than hardware will result in the lifetimes of premium tablets extending as they remain active in the household for longer. We will also see consumer preferences split between basic tablets and ultramobile devices,” writes Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. Specifically, in Q4, he notes that ultrabooks will hit the market built with Windows 8.1, equipped with new Intel processors Bay Trail and Haswell.

In any case, ultramobiles’ impact will be minimal for now. Out of the 2.35 billion devices shipped this year, only 20 million will be ultramobiles.

Perhaps more to the point will be the fact that cheaper smartphones and tablets will see another kind of pressure: the growth of software that will extend the life of these devices, which will mean users will be less inclined to spend money upgrading them.

“The increased availability of lower priced basic tablets, plus the value add shifting to software rather than hardware will result in the lifetimes of premium tablets extending as they remain active in the household for longer,” writes Atwal.

When it comes to platforms, there aren’t many surprises here. Android — which has been dominating the computing industry for a while now with very ubiquitous smartphones running on Google’s OS — will continue to ride that wave. This year there will be 866 million Android units shipped — or roughly one-third of all the devices that will be sent out for sale. Android devices will continue their climb, at a rate faster than that of overall devices. They will hit the billion-unit mark in 2014, with 1.06 billion Android-powered units, equating to just under half of the 2.5 billion devices sold that year.

As you can see from the figures above, Apple is not winning in terms of having the most ubiquitous platform — and it’s not even a close second contender. But interestingly, Gartner points out that it is the most successful at achieving a cross-device ecosystem.

“Although the numbers seem to paint a clear picture of who the winner will be when it comes to operating systems (OS) in the device market, the reality is that today ecosystem owners are challenged in having the same relevance in all segments,” writes Milanesi. “Apple is currently the more homogeneous presence across all device segments, while 90 percent of Android sales are currently in the mobile phone market and 85 percent of Microsoft sales are in the PC market.” What she also didn’t note is that while Samsung is the strongest in smartphones, there are dozens more making Android devices, and in PCs the picture is much the same. This points to how Apple may be better positioned to capitalize on making the best margins not just on their hardware, but also on the services that they lock consumers in to using across all of it.

Samsung, it should be pointed out, is a strong contender in all these categories as well, so it will not be surprising to see it making moves to offer more services that tie in their different devices together. The question remains, though, whether companies like Microsoft and Google who have been so far strongest in software will try to expand that more into hardware. Results so far have been mixed.

Mercenary Kings' is 'Borderlands' meets 'Scott Pilgrim' on PS4 and PC

There are plenty of big shooters coming to the PlayStation 4, from Destiny to Killzone: Shadow Fall. These games emphasize massive, open worlds, social connectivity, and incredibly detailed high-definition graphics. Mercenary Kings, an upcoming PS4 and Steam title from Tribute Games, goes a different route. It's a title that feels like the Metal Slug game that time forgot — a 2D shooter for a next-gen console. 

Mercenary Kings is a run-and-gun shooter in the vein of Contra and Metal Slug. You play as a soldier of some sort, and you take on missions that mainly involving killing lots of dudes with really big guns. The gameplay is reminiscent of the classics, with simple platforming and an emphasis on action. But it also feels relatively open, letting you explore levels instead of simply moving from left to right. In the demo I played, the controls felt tight and the weapons satisfyingly powerful.

While it may sound like yet another retro-style indie game, Mercenary Kings has several tweaks that give it a modern feel. Chief among them is the insane amount of weapon upgrades at your disposal — much like in the Borderlands series, you can customize your guns by swapping parts, giving you plenty of freedom to build a firearm that works just right for you. You'll gather these bits and pieces with a Diablo-esque loot system that should provide added incentive for shooting bad guys in the face. According to the developers, there are more than 300 parts to collect and use. And though I played in single player, there will also be co-op play for up to four people, which should make a crazy game even crazier.

The over-the-top weapons and action are complimented by the big, exaggerated pixel art, which comes courtesy of artist and animator Paul Robertson, best known for his work on the Scott Pilgrim beat 'em up for PS3. Characters are cartoonish and exaggerated, and the bad guys explode in surprisingly playful splashes of blood and gore. The bosses are gigantic and the explosions even bigger. The classic gameplay and retro visuals may make Mercenary Kings seem like a dated throwback, but the customization elements and terrific art style help make the game feel modern. It's also the most fun I had playing a PS4 shooter at E3 — and it's coming to both Sony's console and Windows later this year.

AMD won the next-gen console war, and PC gamers could reap the reward

Sony and Microsoft will be duking out the next console war for years to come, but there's one company that wins no matter what: chipmaker AMD, which managed to put processors in every new console, including the Nintendo Wii U, the PlayStation 4, and the Xbox One. If you buy any new game console this holiday, you'll be helping to fill AMD's depleted coffers — but AMD's sweep could have far more significance than that. The company's dominance in next-gen consoles could actually make PC gaming more relevant than it's been in ages.

You might be aware that the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 won't be backwards compatible with games built for prior systems. As Sony and Microsoft both explained, it's partly because the new consoles use an incompatible processor architecture. While the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 used PowerPC parts, the new consoles have AMD chips that run on the x86 instruction set. If that sounds familiar, it should: Apple made the very same shift in 2006, when it started putting Intel processors into the Mac.

In each of these transitions, there are ways to stay compatible, but it’s a difficult and costly thing. Apple’s Rosetta software for translating between PowerPC and x86 didn’t have the speed for intensive applications. The PS3 originally shipped with the guts of a PS2 inside, increasing the cost of the machine. Inevitably, legacy software gets the boot. But now that the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC all share the same x86 architecture, it could be much easier to port games between PCs and next-gen consoles.

Perhaps that's why Nvidia is managing to sound so upbeat. Though Nvidia didn't convince Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft to adopt its tech this time around — formerly, Nvidia provided the GPU for the PlayStation 3 — Nvidia SVP Tony Tamasi still called the consoles "nothing but goodness for the PC" when he spoke at the Electronics Entertainment Expo last week.

The gaming PC felt like something of a second-class citizen this previous console generation, with developers building games first for the consoles and then only perhaps a second time for Windows machines. But Tamasi says games could actually be developed first for PC this time around — and it might already be happening. The Nvidia exec pointed out that console games are already being built on personal computers, and sure enough, we noticed that many of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 titles we saw at E3 were running on PCs during their early demos. "Maybe we should ask the consoles if they'll ship day and date with PC!" said Tamasi, responding to a question about relative video game release dates.

Unsurprisingly, AMD senior product marketing manager Marc Diana is also bullish on the PC. "We're struggling to find a name for what used to be called porting, because there's not really a problem with that anymore," the senior product marketing manager told The Verge. "It's a thousand times easier now because it's all x86 based," he said.

But speaking to actual game developers on the E3 show floor, not all of them agreed that x86 would fundamentally change their efforts. "In the end, it's the same amount of work," said Eidos' Nicholas Cantin, director of Thief, a game coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC. Cantin pointed out that the controls are different on each platform, among many other things.

Though developers are already finding they can simply add a tablet app to mimic the Wii U Gamepad experience on other platforms, and you can indeed buy a Kinect-like depth camera for PS4 or PC, it won't always make sense for games that rely on a platform's native functionality. Nvidia's Tamasi readily admits that might be the case. "If that's the thing that's going to drive you," he says of voice commands and full-body motion control, "Then gosh, you'd better get a Kinect."

Special financial arrangements between companies could also torpedo the possibility of some games going multiplatform. There was a very awkward part of an otherwise quite lovely conversation with Respawn Entertainment's Joel Emslie when I asked him whether x86 would help his studio'sTitanfall in any way. I'd forgotten thatTitanfall is a Microsoft exclusive, headed to Xbox and Windows but not PlayStation 4, and he was trying his very best not to admit that on the record.

Why not? It’s hard to say for sure, but it sounds like his studio was forced to accept a deal from Microsoft in order to weather the storm when Activision tried to sue Respawn into the ground. "We got hit with an insane lawsuit, we barely survived, and we're a small studio trying to get out a next-gen property," Emslie finally explained. Respawn’s story isn’t an ordinary one, but it underscores a common reason why a developer might choose to build for a limited number of platforms: exclusivity.

Karl Magnus-Trodesson, general manager of DICE (Battlefield, Mirror's Edge, Star Wars: Battlefront), does indeed think the new platforms make development easier, but also believes that the decision to build for one or for many platforms hasn't fundamentally changed. "It's up to each individual developer how they want to do it. Some people might focus on one platform because that's what they do." Still, he argues that there's value in building multi platform games when you can. "Those big blockbuster games … they are probably going to continue striving to get out on as many platforms that make sense as possible."

But Magnus-Trodesson points out that the game industry doesn't necessarily need x86 to flourish across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. Cross-platform game engines were already in place to help facilitate broad game releases. Unreal Engine 3 in particular got huge traction in the last console generation, allowing developers to build a variety of high-quality titles across many different systems.

Not all game developers license game engines from other companies, though, and AMD's Marc Diana says those engines aren't as efficient as could be. "The publishers still had to take their time and decide, do they really want to launch on the PC?" Diana said. "I don't think they have to answer that question anymore."

Electronic Arts is one company still asking that question, though, and not necessarily for the reason you'd expect. EA Sports boss Andrew Wilson says that one reason none of its next-gen sports games are coming to PC is because Microsoft and Sony's new game consoles are actually more powerful than many PCs in a very specific, subtle way: "How the CPU, GPU, and RAM work together in concert," Wilson told Polygon.

That might sound suspiciously vague, but we spoke to AMD and it's actually true. The AMD chips inside the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One take advantage of something called Heterogeneous Unified Memory Access (HUMA),
which allows both the CPU and GPU to share the same memory pool instead of having to copy data from one before the other can use it. Diana likened it to driving to the corner store to pick up some milk, instead of driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It's one of AMD's proposed Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) techniques to make the many discrete processors in a system work in tandem to more efficiently share loads.

While the EA Sports example shows that HSA and HUMA aren't necessarily good news for today's PC gamers, it might actually give AMD a leg up in PC gaming tomorrow. AMD's new desktop and laptop processors will bring HSA features to the table later this year, and games built for those features could theoretically run better on AMD chips than components from Intel and Nvidia.

There’s still a lot of work to be done before PC gaming is as easy as sitting down on a comfortable couch with a wireless controller and simply playing a game. We're still hopingthat Valve's Steam Box will light the way. But if or when the PC industry figures it out, AMD’s victory could mean more games, and better games, for everyone.