Gamers, it is that time of year when the game manufacturers start making the updated versions of your favorite game ready for purchase, just in time for the holiday season. While you can still purchase the hardcopy version of the game in a brick and mortar store, most gamers prefer to make the purchase online and simply download the game and save the trip to the store.
We want to make you aware of just how long a download can take depending on the speed package you currently have.
Let’s take the recently highly anticipated release of Call of Duty-Modern Warfare 2 as an example. This game is in the neighborhood of 130 Gigabit to download so let’s take a look at just how long that takes to download a game that size based on your current speed package.
5 Mbps – 58 hours download time
10 Mbps – 29 hours download time
25 Mbps – 12 hours download time
50 Mbps – 6 hours download time
100 Mbps – 3 hours download time
1 Gig – 30 minutes (only if the games servers will allow 1 Gig and in this specific games’ case, the server would not allow that high of speed)
Another piece of information that will help you along the way in truly understanding your internet is that the game manufactures have discovered over the years that using a streaming mode of delivery is the best way to deliver the game to your gaming system. That is perfectly fine except for the fact that the internet looks at that stream in the same way it looks at Netflix, YouTube, and other streaming services. What this means to you is that if are downloading your new game and you simply want to check out Facebook or check your email while you’re waiting you might be able to do that, but if you are planning on downloading your new game while watching a streaming service that could be a different story. The video game download is already using all of the bandwidth required for that kind of internet traffic so unfortunately all you will get to watch is that buffering circle go round and round and…
So, for gamers or parents of gamers, now you know what to expect. For the parents, if all of the sudden you are seeing constant buffering, the gamer in your house just might be downloading the newest game to hit the stores.
If you have any questions about what speed packages are available to you and how we can enhance your internet experience with NLBC please feel free to call our friendly and knowledgeable customer service representatives at 1-866-332-2413 and they can assist you in making sure you have enough bandwidth to cover everyone in your home for the upcoming holiday season.
