Jimquisition: Why The PS4 Is Kicking Xbox One's Arse

[Simalacrum]

after all the drm and shit MS tried to push on the xbone, i am actually happy the system is failing!

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here; the Xbox One is NOT failing. Being beaten by competitors and actually being a flop are two very different things. From all accounts the Xbone has actually sold pretty damn well, and is certainly establishing itself as a serious competitor to the PS4. The Xbox One is less of a Sega Dreamcast, and more of a Nintendo 64: not winning, but certainly not being dominated either.

Now, in regards to why the PS4 is beating the Xbox One... while the Indie games hypothesis does make sense, and it may very well be a reason why gamers will consistently use a console more often, I certainly don't think thats the reason why sales are better for the PS4 than the Xbox One.

It all comes down to price, in my opinion. If the Xbox One was the same price or even cheaper than the PS4, we'd be seeing a very different scenario here. The Vita, after all, has an impressive lineup of indie games after all, but it is being massacred by the 3DS because of a) a lack of big titles, but more importantly, b) its more expensive than the 3DS (bearing in mind 3DS sales shot up once Nintendo panic-reduced the price of the 3DS).

 

[Aardvaarkman]

It doesn't matter if they make money on each game, the question is how much money is made. The Xbox revenues are a drop in the bucket compared to their PC revenues, so it doesn't matter how viable the business model is if it's causing LOST revenues in the far more important wing of their company. More and more of those people who own Xboxes now own Apple computers. If the Xbox causes a 4% loss in Windows revenue that's more revenue than the entire Xbox division brought in, and that's why Microsoft needs to jettison their gaming division for the sake of their own long term viability.

The Xbox would cause nowhere near a 4% drop in Windows revenues.

Gaming is basically inconsequential to Windows. The vast majority of Windows revenue is made from selling bulk licenses to business and enterprise users, and especially the associated Office licenses that go with them.

Consumer computing in general just isn't where Microsoft makes its money, even if you don't narrow that to gaming. Almost the entire consumer computing market has been lost to Android and iOS already.

If you say that Xbox revenues are a drop in the bucket compared to Windows revenues, then Windows Gaming revenues are a fraction of a drop in the bucket.

 

[Thanatos2k]

It doesn't matter if they make money on each game, the question is how much money is made. The Xbox revenues are a drop in the bucket compared to their PC revenues, so it doesn't matter how viable the business model is if it's causing LOST revenues in the far more important wing of their company. More and more of those people who own Xboxes now own Apple computers. If the Xbox causes a 4% loss in Windows revenue that's more revenue than the entire Xbox division brought in, and that's why Microsoft needs to jettison their gaming division for the sake of their own long term viability.

The Xbox would cause nowhere near a 4% drop in Windows revenues.

Gaming is basically inconsequential to Windows. The vast majority of Windows revenue is made from selling bulk licenses to business and enterprise users, and especially the associated Office licenses that go with them.

Consumer computing in general just isn't where Microsoft makes its money, even if you don't narrow that to gaming. Almost the entire consumer computing market has been lost to Android and iOS already.

If you say that Xbox revenues are a drop in the bucket compared to Windows revenues, then Windows Gaming revenues are a fraction of a drop in the bucket.

Nonsense. Gaming and the exclusive support for it is a huge part of why the Windows platform achieved its monopoly. There was no other place to play MSDOS games. There was no other place to play DirectX games. Linux emulation has only recently begun to not suck, and Apple support lagged for decades and still does.

Consumer computing, especially OEM licensing, is a large portion of Microsoft revenue.

http://www.microsoft.com/Investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/SegmentResults/S1/fy14/q2/Performance.aspx

Look at those numbers for some sense of scale. Also:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/175350-microsoft-delivers-record-revenue-profits-due-to-strong-xbox-windows-phone-and-commercial-sales

Microsoft is inexplicably CONTRIBUTING to the collapse of the consumer PC! Again, competing with themselves. It's insane.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Nonsense. Gaming and the exclusive support for it is a huge part of why the Windows platform achieved its monopoly.

It was part of it, but I wouldn't say it was a huge part. Windows has always been driven by business. And the main reason people bought Windows computers to use at home, was because they used a Windows computer at work.

I'd say you have the causation backwards. Business adoption of Windows drove other platforms out of the market, therefore Windows became the default platform for games. It wasn't gaming driving Windows.

There was no other place to play MSDOS games. There was no other place to play DirectX games. Linux emulation has only recently begun to not suck, and Apple support lagged for decades and still does.

Notice how you used "was"? It's a different world now. Using the past to argue about the present isn't a very compelling argument. Very few people are still playing MS-DOS games.

Consumer computing, especially OEM licensing, is a large portion of Microsoft revenue.

A sharply declining one. Publicly traded companies trade on the future potential, not the present or past.

Microsoft is inexplicably CONTRIBUTING to the collapse of the consumer PC! Again, competing with themselves. It's insane.

No, it's not insane. Microsoft knows that consumer desktop computing is pretty much doomed. Smart companies do compete with themselves. For example, when Apple introduced the iPhone, which competed with the iPod monopoly, or the iPad, which competed with the Mac. If Apple had been making more conservative (old Microsoft-style) business decisions, they wouldn't have dared kill the iPod gravy-train with the iPhone.

Microsoft's problem is that they realised this too late. For far too long, they coasted on their cash cows, and tried to block any outside competition or disruption - rather than trying to disrupt from within. They left themselves vulnerable to attack by disruptive technologies, rather than developing those disruptive technologies themselves.

And you can see tons of articles and studies showing this - Microsoft had a bunch of internal divisions all protecting their own interests from new ideas. So, the company fell behind, because of all these fiefdoms protecting themselves, rather than looking at the big picture.

Microsoft can't hold back time. It has enough cash reserves that it has been able to ignore reality for extended periods in the past. But, eventually it catches up with them (see: the mobile market). Pretending they can just cling to the old ways when they had all the power and there were few alternatives, is not a sustainable business model.

 

[Dragonbums]

-snip-

You do realize he was kind of joking right?

 

[dystopiaINC]

What? Playstation Plus and the PS4's indie library are why Sony is kicking ass? I disagree.

I believe it's the $100 price difference and the "softcore" gamer's conception of the PS4 being more "powerful". Anecdotal evidence; my roommate who plays CoD and only CoD every once in a while plans on buying a PS4. He still thinks PS4's multiplayer is free. I'm not going to correct him because it'll piss him off when he finds out for himself and that'll be funny. It's only funny because we're such good friends and he's poor and going through university. Don't worry, his parents are rich as shit, he just wants to do it on his own.

Anyways, I think Titanfall is THE system seller and THE CoD killer. It's enough of a reason to buy the One over a PS4. Watch One sales increase rapidly over the next couple months.

But see, if your friend is poor then he'd be better off with PS+ since it's only $5 a month vs. XBLG's $10 a month.

I mean if your friend is in such a financial predicament that he can't even afford what amounts to a cup of coffee from Starbucks once every 30 days then perhaps spending hundreds of dollars on a new system isn't the wisest thing to do.

If he's looking for a CoD fix he should buy a PS3 since the price for even a new system would save him hundreds compared to a new PS4. Also he'd still be able to play the PS3 versions of CoD online for free.

As a 'good friend' I'd think you'd want to help him with such suggestions instead of letting him spend so much money only to be upset with what he bought.

Xbox Live is only $10 if you pay monthly, it's $25 for three months, and $60 for the year. id don't know why you would ever buy it at the monthly rate. besides a lot of places will have "buy 12 get 1 month free" codes, and I've seen lots of places that have periodic sales on the one year, I bought 2 years worth for $40 during one such sale. and while i have no uses for it if you can get some people together xbox live has a family subscription for 12 months $100 and it cover 4 profiles. for $40 extra a year you can cover 3 other profiles. that's insanely cheep if you pay separately for 2 it would be $120 at regular price... it's actually pretty reasonable...

 

[nightazday]

Sony: by fusing Indie and AAA we are now... complete

Though this video seems like a continuation of the stream video.

 

[epichappy]

Independent games are not selling the system, you even said that in the video. The title of the video is "Why-The-PS4-Is-Kicking-Xbox-Ones-Arse" and you don't answer that question. I suppose you may be referring to why it is better quality rather than why it is selling better, but I took "why the ps4 sells more units than the xbox one" from the video.

The sad thing is, the xbox one runs windows... it could play many of the games for windows 8 windows RT and windows phone... it just doesn't. This could be an XBOX OS API issue, but not a control issue as windows 8 games can use xbox 360 controllers and the APIs are there to use this input method. Anyway if the XBL Marketplace was the same as the windows store I don't think the xbox would sell better than the PS4, I think it is something else. Rather that just saying how right you are you could define what Kicking an Arse means but nooooooooo because you are so perfect you don't need to define anything in a way that makes sense.

Note: when I say xbox os I mean the way the three operating systems interect (hyper V etc.) not the part of the three oses (plural of operating system?) known as XBOX os which "AAA" games run on.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

>consoles
>still relevant

Spoiler

Paying to play games on the internet, after paying for internet service is not a justifiable model, no matter how much 'free content' they try to add. Both companies are wrong and pathetic so long as this little thing called THE INTERNET exists.

You do know that the internet doesn't run on good vibes generated from the pure flow of information, right? Internet based services are run by servers. Servers cost a lot of money. Good servers cost even more. Enough good servers to run a worldwide multiplayer service costs a large fortune. The console providers have a decision to make: provide a shitty, half-assed multiplayer service and destroy the one thing they have going for them over PC (a relatively hassle free experience) or charge a small monthly fee to provide a useful and good service.

And don't say "but the PC does it for free!" because it does not. PC multiplayer service is a joke. Besides a few highly successful titles PC multiplayer service is generally very poor. Many games, even high profile games, barely even function.

If I could pay $5 a month for greatly improved multiplayer on my PC I would do it today and never look back.

id like to know in what reality you live, because i cant comprehend how "PC multiplayer service is generally very poor"

there are games that are more than a decade old with working online on PC, such as starcraft and CS 1.6, not only that but PC host some of the biggest multiplayer games ever, games such as world of tanks, dota 2 and of course the most played game on earth, League of Legends

not to mention that as far as online functionality goes Steam provides the entire package for free and it even puts consoles to shame in many aspects such as:

-dedicated hubs for every single game, with forums, guides, screenshots and artwork
-trading cards, along with badges emoticons and profile backgrounds
-community market for selling ingame items and trading cards
-trading of course
-the steam workshop which allows for easy installing of mods

all this for free

You will notice that I specifically said "multiplayer service" not "secondary internet based support." There is a big difference. I will agree that PC games virtually always have better secondary internet based support, but multiplayer services on the PC are typically poor. These are two different things.

You will also notice that I specifically mentioned the relatively rare case of the extremely successful game. Lol, Dota, CS, and Left for Dead are the exception to the rule. Because they have been so wildly successful they provide good services (though even those games are often only as good as console multiplayer services.) Other games, even high profile games like Diablo 3, Sim City, and Rainbow 6 vegas 2, have often provided us with broken services from day one, requiring significant technical knowledge to overcome the difficulties associated with making it work if they can be made to function at all.

Often we are provided no service at all and are instead given a dedicated server tool, which I actually think is the best solution because there exists no good infrastructure on which to build a multiplayer service. But remember that dedicated servers are not a service and they do not allow for many of the important advantages of a multiplayer service, such as skill based match making, auto balancing, and a click and play multiplayer for those who just want to play their game.

Rainbow 6 vegas 2... really? you call that high profile?, also are we ever going to talk for instance of companies closing down servers on consoles? is specially terrible in multiplayer only games such as MAG, you purchase is made essentially pointless

i seriously cant see how PC offers worse multiplayer services

 

[Thanatos2k]

Nonsense. Gaming and the exclusive support for it is a huge part of why the Windows platform achieved its monopoly.

It was part of it, but I wouldn't say it was a huge part. Windows has always been driven by business. And the main reason people bought Windows computers to use at home, was because they used a Windows computer at work.

I'd say you have the causation backwards. Business adoption of Windows drove other platforms out of the market, therefore Windows became the default platform for games. It wasn't gaming driving Windows.

That's not the reason our family first bought one. It was for DOS games.

Notice how you used "was"? It's a different world now. Using the past to argue about the present isn't a very compelling argument. Very few people are still playing MS-DOS games.

It's still true. Windows supports the vast majority of computer games. Some have Mac versions. Some work on Linux too. Some can be fudged to run on Linux or virtualized on a Mac. Most are Windows exclusively. Especially console ports.

For example, there is no Mac version of Assassin's Creed 4. There will be no Mac version of Dark Souls 2. And so on down the line, game after game.

A sharply declining one. Publicly traded companies trade on the future potential, not the present or past.

Sharply declining in part because of Microsoft's inattention and inexplicable disdain for their own product. Windows 8 isn't helping.

 

[t850terminator]

I still dont understand why indie games cant be system sellers...

They can to us. Transistor was a major reason in my decision to get a PS4.

Anyone who cares enough about games to visit a site like this is going to care about games and the industry and a great indie title can make a big difference. But to the average Joe out there, the ones who don't know about any games that they haven't seen on television or heard about from their friends, an indie game probably wouldn't convince those customers while Call of Duty 14 with actually rendered nose hairs and a pet monkey you can pilot for 42 seconds might sway a purchase decision while Octodad might not.

Same for me, Transistor and Second Son...

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

No, it's not insane. Microsoft knows that consumer desktop computing is pretty much doomed. Smart companies do compete with themselves. For example, when Apple introduced the iPhone, which competed with the iPod monopoly, or the iPad, which competed with the Mac. If Apple had been making more conservative (old Microsoft-style) business decisions, they wouldn't have dared kill the iPod gravy-train with the iPhone.

Microsoft's problem is that they realised this too late. For far too long, they coasted on their cash cows, and tried to block any outside competition or disruption - rather than trying to disrupt from within. They left themselves vulnerable to attack by disruptive technologies, rather than developing those disruptive technologies themselves.

And you can see tons of articles and studies showing this - Microsoft had a bunch of internal divisions all protecting their own interests from new ideas. So, the company fell behind, because of all these fiefdoms protecting themselves, rather than looking at the big picture.

Microsoft can't hold back time. It has enough cash reserves that it has been able to ignore reality for extended periods in the past. But, eventually it catches up with them (see: the mobile market). Pretending they can just cling to the old ways when they had all the power and there were few alternatives, is not a sustainable business model.

you are kiddin right? comuser desktops are FAAAAAR from death, they will still be a part of the standard house hold for years to come, and so is gaming in it, hell the PC gaming market is bigger than the market of any individual console

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I still dont understand why indie games cant be system sellers...

They can to us. Transistor was a major reason in my decision to get a PS4.

Anyone who cares enough about games to visit a site like this is going to care about games and the industry and a great indie title can make a big difference. But to the average Joe out there, the ones who don't know about any games that they haven't seen on television or heard about from their friends, an indie game probably wouldn't convince those customers while Call of Duty 14 with actually rendered nose hairs and a pet monkey you can pilot for 42 seconds might sway a purchase decision while Octodad might not.

Same for me, Transistor and Second Son...

Yeah, Second Son for me too. I really enjoyed the first two InFamous games. Can't wait to get the new one.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

[

There is something to be said about pushing your console out in order to get a large install base in order to get the real money earners as well as (I'm still assuming this is American sales figures we are talking about) beating your opposition in their home country and stronghold of the last generation is something to be amazed about.

Except that Microsoft generated a bigger profit from Xbox One sales than Sony did for their PS4 last month in America, so I'm not sure "stronghold" is the right word.

Factor in the fact that Xbox One sales stands for less than 3 percent of Microsoft's revenue, saying that Microsoft should even by concerned by this is a bit of a stretch. Sony on the other hand, which is essentially on life support with the PS4 being one of their last, few profitable products, should be worried. Sony is reporting annual loses and are cutting jobs. What I'm saying is that even in a gaming conversation such as this, it's good to have some perspective.

Yes, MS is generating a profit on the console itself, because everyone knows that's where the money is with gaming consoles, not the licencing fees and the online passes.
/sarcasm

The PS3 showed us how bloody a struggle it is to make up sales against an entrenched opponent in the console wars, especially when you are priced above the competition. And that isn't even counting the markets MS ignored completely,. All those 10000 to 100000 units sold countries my not seem like much but it was enough for Sony to bet their rather loft goal of selling 5 million consoles before the end of the financial year.

And don't put too much hope with Micosoft's main product line, between casual users moving towards tablets and phones, MS's tablets and pones not gaining much traction against the juggernauts of Apple and everything else using Android, and finally the main bread and butter of MS called the Business market looking at Windows 8 and going 'too locked down,' 'not enough legacy support' '7 is good enough for now' and the ever popular 'oh shit, we're going to have to teach those tech-illiterate fuckwits how to use friggin Metro' and sticking with older versions the Microsoft ride is looking to be a bit bumpy. Nowhere nearly as bad as Sony's current predicament, but the next few years could prove interesting for them.

 

[wolfyrik]

Hmm... good episode. Quite frankly, I don't get the whole accusing critics of being paid fanboys of this or that company. Even on the off-off-off-off-off chance that you're right... what's the use?

And besides, 97% of the time, you are dead wrong.

Also... isn't "paid fanboy" a bit of an oxymoron anyway?

Good episode at any rate, Mr. Sterling.

Also... the ad has me curious...

anyone know what Psycho Pass is? Some anime, I know... but anyone know if its any good? Or roughly what its about?

Psycho Pass is a story centered around a police officer in the near future. Crime fighting has adopted a technology by which crime is fought before it happens, by reading the 'psycho pass' of citizens through scanners, much the way CCTV monitors citizens today. The psycho pass is your psychological makeup and emotional state, it's a measurement of probability that you're going to commit a crime. For example in that world, people who encounter criminal behavior would become upset by it, increasing distress, which results in emotional instability and the potential for committing an act of violence. If their psycho pass reamins high and doesn't lower, they would be prosecuted, even though they haven't done anything wrong.

It's like a manga take on orwell/huxely. Quite a good series all in all. It presents this horrific, mental scanning and pre-crime punishment in a 'by the by' sort of way. It's normal for the characters and they try to make it seem normal to the viewer, which is genius because it really creeps you out when you realise what's going on. I really like the series but my GF isn't keen, simply because the ideas it presents, the control the normalisation of indescriminate observation of every citizen, creep her out too much.

As for the Jimquisition this week, also very clever. I really like the double-bluff approach this episode takes. Thank god for Jim!

 

[RicoADF]

Dear Jimothy Sterling: What do you think about Sony raising the PS 4 in Canada while the Xbox One and Wii U isn't increasing?

What is total crap IMO, when the CAD was at or ~.05 par with the USD for a good long while, nothing came down in price. Now the CAD drops for a month or two and everything goes up and wont come down.

This seems like a nothing more than a greed grab by Sony. IMO it didn't take them long to get greedy again with their little time on top.....

Small point, the price increase is apparently due to a difference in value between Japan and Canada, not the US. Remember Sony is a Japanese company not American (so the xbox not changing is appropriate although Nintendo didn't increase, although you could argue they could afford to eat the loss as they really need to push consoles).

 

[Aardvaarkman]

That's not the reason our family first bought one. It was for DOS games.

What year was this in? When MS-DOS systems were popular, computers were very expensive items. Almost nobody would buy one just for playing games. And if you wanted a computer for games during the MS-DOS era, you would get much better games and a wider selection (at a lower price, too) from a Commodore system.

Games may have been the reason your family bought one, but it's far from typical.

It's still true. Windows supports the vast majority of computer games. Some have Mac versions. Some work on Linux too. Some can be fudged to run on Linux or virtualized on a Mac. Most are Windows exclusively. Especially console ports.

That seems unlikely, unless you are referring to "all computer games throughout history."

If you're talking about current games, that probably isn't true. The mobile platforms would likely have the edge in this scenario. There are plenty of mobile and console games that aren't supported by Windows.

For example, there is no Mac version of Assassin's Creed 4. There will be no Mac version of Dark Souls 2. And so on down the line, game after game.

Yeah, the Mac isn't really known as a gaming platform. You're just highlighting how desktop gaming isn't doing so well. Now, if you look at mobile gaming, you'll find a different scenario.

Sharply declining in part because of Microsoft's inattention and inexplicable disdain for their own product. Windows 8 isn't helping.

It's not just Microsoft that has inattention and disdain for their product. However, most people's inattention and disdain for Windows is completely explicable.

 

[Thanatos2k]

That's not the reason our family first bought one. It was for DOS games.

What year was this in? When MS-DOS systems were popular, computers were very expensive items. Almost nobody would buy one just for playing games. And if you wanted a computer for games during the MS-DOS era, you would get much better games and a wider selection (at a lower price, too) from a Commodore system.

This would have been circa........1992. Windows 3.11. With such classic hits as "Jill of the Jungle"!

If you're talking about current games, that probably isn't true. The mobile platforms would likely have the edge in this scenario. There are plenty of mobile and console games that aren't supported by Windows.

We aren't talking about mobile. Mobile games are pretty much an entirely different market. They sure as hell aren't even in the same ball park, quality wise.

Yeah, the Mac isn't really known as a gaming platform. You're just highlighting how desktop gaming isn't doing so well.

Oh is it now.

http://hexus.net/gaming/news/hardware/60297-steam-continues-impressive-growth-face-pc-decline/

Talking about the state of the PC market Valve?s Gabe Newell told Linuxcon attendees in New Orleans about the woe of the PC industry, experiencing steady declines year over year. ?I think we'll see significant restructurings, or market exits, by top-five companies in the PC space. It's looking pretty grim,? he said to the crowds.

Contrasting the Valve business experience Newell showed some statistics which suggest that the PC gaming market not only seems ?immune? to that PC system market downturn but is growing. ?Steam is going up 76 per cent year-on-year while PCs are going through double-digit declines,? Newell informed us.

Why is Steam so dominant? Because Microsoft's offerings in the space have been pure garbage, mostly because of their new direction to focus only on their game console. Games For Windows Live in particular was legendarily bad.

See, the people responsible for the decline of the PC aren't the gamers, they're the casual user who were using PCs for the internet and little else. They can still do that on tablets and phones, so that's all they need.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

This would have been circa........1992. Windows 3.11. With such classic hits as "Jill of the Jungle"!

Wow. What an incredibly bizarre choice. You want to buy a computer just for gaming in 1992 - and you choose an expensive business machine with a small library of low-quality games, when there are several other systems available that are much cheaper, have a bigger and better games library, and you can even hook them up to your TV?

Again, your experience is very much an outlier. Almost nobody did this, and it wasn't people like your family who were driving IBM-compatible PC sales.

We aren't talking about mobile. Mobile games are pretty much an entirely different market. They sure as hell aren't even in the same ball park, quality wise.

Since when weren't we talking about mobile? We were talking about games. There are heaps of games on mobile systems. It's a huge part of the games market. You can't just exclude mobile games from the gaming market just because you don't like them or something.

Have you even seen modern mobile games? There are plenty of them that have fancy 3D graphics and accelerometer-driven interaction, etc., that are definitely in the ballpark of PC and console games. There definitely exist mobile games that are more sophisticated graphically and gameplay-wise than some PC games.

Yeah, the Mac isn't really known as a gaming platform. You're just highlighting how desktop gaming isn't doing so well.

Oh is it now.

I'm well aware that there has been an increase in Mac gaming due to Steam and whatnot. What I said was the Mac isn't known for gaming. In that games and Macs aren't exactly synonymous. When somebody mentions a Mac, most people don't immediately think of games. While it has grown, it's going to share the same fate as PC gaming.

Contrasting the Valve business experience Newell showed some statistics which suggest that the PC gaming market not only seems ?immune? to that PC system market downturn but is growing. ?Steam is going up 76 per cent year-on-year while PCs are going through double-digit declines,? Newell informed us.

Right. And this illustrates my point quite well, I think. PCs have gone from general consumer items to very specialised roles. Gaming is one of those specialised roles that will last a while longer. But Steam's growth on PCs is going to plateau eventually as a niche market. If Steam wants to grow beyond that, it's going to have to get into mobile or consoles (which it is attempting with Steam Box, but seems pretty weak).

Why is Steam so dominant? Because Microsoft's offerings in the space have been pure garbage, mostly because of their new direction to focus only on their game console. Games For Windows Live in particular was legendarily bad.

Right. So Steam's success is basically taking customers from the existing gaming market. I don't think they are actually growing the market itself.

See, the people responsible for the decline of the PC aren't the gamers, they're the casual user who were using PCs for the internet and little else. They can still do that on tablets and phones, so that's all they need.

"Responsible" is a bit of a strong word there, I think. It would also seem the responsibility lies more with Apple and later Android, who introduced the first mobile devices that were powerful and user-friendly. Those users couldn't have switched to phones and tablets if those products weren't there for them to switch to.

Your "little else" comment is also rather simplistic. I assume you're talking about email and websites when you say "the internet" there. Because these days, pretty much everything runs on the internet. There actually is very little else. And again, modern tablets and phones are capable of most of what a desktop computer can do. You can shoot and edit a video on a phone or camera. You can remotely administrate a database. There's very little that you cannot do on a mobile device these days. And there are actually lots of applications (like augmented reality stuff) that you can't do on a desktop PC that you can on a mobile device.