I think you and Don are guilty of focusing too closely on the stereotype to the expense of your understanding of the greater demographic. Only a small segment of the PC Gamer demographic has deep pockets enough to stay in the vanguard of emerging graphics technology, hardware and software. Most, I say most PC gamers are running consumer level, bundle boxes with only minor upgrades.
Let's try to nail this down.
Firstly: At this point in time, Boot Camp is only going to be interesting to people who are either Mac users or wanna-be Mac users and can't. If someone is not a Mac user and never had the desire to be a Mac user, it is just a big yawn.
However, that still means that a lot of people have been released from their restriction of only running Wintel computers. No one knows how large this group is, but it could be quite large when compared to the size of the Mac user demographic. Though comparatively small, when compared to the Wintel user demographic.
Secondly: Not everyone within this group is going to run out and secure their place in line to buy a Mac. But, when they get ready to, chances are they will.
Thirdly: All of the orders coming from this defined demographic are new to the retail front line as a direct result of the Boot Camp announcement. Boot Camp alone is going to sell some computers for Apple that would not have sold otherwise. The question is how many and for how long.
My seat of pants estimate is roughly 20% more for the next two to three years, with the tendency to gradually increase from whatever the initial level is, due to word of mouth brand penetration. That's really pretty conservative, given the recent euphoria. |
