I don’t think we’re the last generation of PC builders. But I do agree with /u/kahjtheundedicated 's comment that it is increasingly going to skew towards very high-end builds.
I think there’s a couple reasons for this. The first, of course, is the strangulation of supply causing sharp, sharp price increases. When the entry point for making a “decent” machine starts to sit around $1200+, it’s obviously going to turn people away (especially when one of the big points of Build Your Own was once ‘it is actually financially better’).
But the other is that there is far less of a growing market. People in the ‘young-teenager’ to ‘young adult range’ - the point at which they’d once start getting excited over punchy new specs and customizing their computer - are increasingly attached to handheld devices and even the instant gratification of consoles rather than high-spec PC games or the custom built machines to run them.
I don’t think we’re the last generation of PC builders. But I do agree with /u/kahjtheundedicated 's comment that it is increasingly going to skew towards very high-end builds.
I think there’s a couple reasons for this. The first, of course, is the strangulation of supply causing sharp, sharp price increases. When the entry point for making a “decent” machine starts to sit around $1200+, it’s obviously going to turn people away (especially when one of the big points of Build Your Own was once ‘it is actually financially better’).
But the other is that there is far less of a growing market. People in the ‘young-teenager’ to ‘young adult range’ - the point at which they’d once start getting excited over punchy new specs and customizing their computer - are increasingly attached to handheld devices and even the instant gratification of consoles rather than high-spec PC games or the custom built machines to run them.