New research from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that consumers are steadily increasing their gaming activities on streaming media players, which includes form factors such as streaming sticks and boxes.
The research firm reveals that among U.S. broadband households with at least one Internet-connected device, 26% use their streaming media player as their primary device to access online video content. These households spend an average of 1.3 hours per week gaming on their streaming media players.
“Gaming consoles were once the dominant platform for accessing online content, but today, only 32% of U.S. broadband households with at least one Internet-connected CE device use their gaming console as their primary platform,” said Barbara Kraus, director of Research, Parks Associates. “Gaming consoles are still in the lead, but smart TVs are a close second at 28%, with streaming media players third at 26%. However, broadband households will not purchase a gaming console just for streaming, so the future lies in new uses for consoles such as virtual reality.”
Parks Associates estimates that 86 million streaming media players will be sold globally in 2019. The households that use a gaming console as their primary CE device spend an average of 6.2 hours per week gaming on these platforms. Households that use a smart TV as their primary CE device spend an average of 1.6 hours per week gaming on it, and households that use a streaming media player as their primary CE device spend an average of 1.3 hours per week gaming on it.
“The types of games are different for streaming media players than for gaming consoles, in most instances,” Kraus said. “Games on Roku are generally more casual while Amazon and Nvidia are targeting ‘tweens’-consumers who want to play gaming at a level above casual but below traditional console and PC gaming. To really succeed at gaming, however, streaming media players would benefit from owning a gaming catalog with exclusive titles. Amazon and Nvidia have catalogs, but it’s also likely that streaming players are attracting a different market than consoles or PCs and it remains to be seen if these catalogs will include the big game that goes viral.”