PS5 Takes Game Downloads From One Hour to Mere Minutes

The PlayStation 4 was my primary system for reviewing multiplatform games, but the download speeds were always a nightmare. Even with my Verizon FIOS and a wired connection to my router, downloads would take forever. Some talked about port forwarding and other issues to fix the problem, but honestly, it should just work. And on PS5, it does.

As part of our review of the PS5 hardware, I tested download speeds for both systems, from starting the download to the game being fully installed and playable. The PS4 Pro and PS5 were hooked up to my router via LAN cable. As I said before, I'm using Verizon FIOS internet—756 Mbps down, 939 Mbps up.

From the review:

For the small game, I chose Disgaea 5, which comes in at a very slight 6.58 GB. On the PlayStation 4 Pro, it took 10 minutes and 42 seconds to download the entire game, versus the mere 1 minute and 58 seconds on the PlayStation 5. From there, it only took 1 minute and 2 seconds to transfer to the external hard drive, making it playable on both systems.

The medium-sized game I chose was Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, standing at 36.6 GB in total size. That took a total of 58 minutes and 34 seconds to download completely on my PS4 Pro. On PS5? 7 minutes and 1 second. From nearly an hour to under ten minutes is an astonishing drop in terms of download times.

It's a vast improvement over the PS4 Pro, which itself had a slight improvement over the PS4. Finally, those of you with fast internet will see those benefits on a PlayStation platform. If you want to know more about the PS5, you can check out our review of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, or check in on the new system's storage situation.