Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

How Does Sony's PlayStation 4 Stack Up Against the New Apple TV?

Sony's PlayStation 4 is first and foremost a device for playing video games, yet it offers many multimedia features. Its disc drive can work as a Blu-Ray player. It supports most of the popular Internet streaming services as well. As a smart TV solution, the PlayStation 4 is overkill, but with the new remote, it's perfectly capable of offering a cohesive living room experience.

Sony's video game consoles played a key role in establishing the market for streaming video, and remain important to its success. As recently as the first-quarter of 2014, Parks Associates found that in the U.S., video game consoles were the most commonly used devices for streaming Internet video, beating out dedicated set-top boxes by a margin of more than 3-to-1.

From the article "How Does Sony's PlayStation 4 Stack Up Against the New Apple TV?" by Sam Mattera.

Previously In The News

Integration: The smart home hub killer (Reality Check)

I am glad to report that the smart home market is in rude health. One recent research report from Parks Associates found that 17 percent of US broadband households own an Internet-connected entertainm...

Apple’s TV service faces its biggest test yet as free trials run out

Apple reducing its reliance on free trials for Apple TV+ is a “critical point” for the service, said Parks Associates research director Steve Nason, who follows the streaming industry. “For newer o...

DirecTV Now to hike prices as content fees rise across industry

Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates, said price increases are a leading reason why viewers cancel subscriptions. “Customers don’t like surprises that hurt their pocketbook,”...

Want to binge watch? New streaming TV services will make you wait

But to some viewers, going a week after a dramatic cliffhanger “seems like it’s old school,” said Brett Sappington, principal analyst at Parks Associates. “For some consumers, that can be frustrati...