Tablets

As more people have PC's, they don't need to replace them.
And prebuilt machine sales are declining. Custom built PC's are on the rise.

In a few years, when people need to upgrade, Prebuilt PC sales might increase. But I suspect tablets will take a lot of those sales.

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Desktops are too "powerful" for what most people use them for. What is happening, is the needs of most people are aligning with the power of tablets because that's all the horsepower and form factor most people need. After all, do you really need a multi-core 8gb ram machine to check emails, post on facebook, do google searches and online shopping? And for those that truly need a desktop, they will find that their needs are nearly always met by a laptop, which can be docked at home to act like a desktop. Both of these reasons conspire to keep desktop buying trending down, down, down. In five years, the only desktop users will be mostly gamers that require the exandability of the hardware, and the elderly that always had a desktop since back in the day. The majority will have tablets and/or smartphones, and everyone else will rely on a laptop. The net effect is that the number of computing devises continues to rise, even as the number of desktops continues to fall...almost like a zero net gain of sorts.

People are now buying Tablets and the like because Windows 8 doesn't suit their needs.

Many are blaming 8 as the reason PC Sales are dropping and even though I can not see it as the same people use Tablets with 8 on them and rave about just how great that they feel they are.

Maybe any excuse is good enough to explain what's happening though I tend to agree that as most people now have Computers they are no longer rushing out to buy them till they need a new one. It could be at that point some have decided that till 8 gets better in their eyes they'll put off replacing their current PC.

Col

This seems likely to be the case. The whole "Hardware warfare" thing doesn't hold that much of people's time, as well as the "need to follow technology all the way as it progresses."