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Console Download Speeds Tested
MTV's Multiplayer blog tested and compared the download speeds of games on the Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PS3. They tested a variety of scenarios, with the PS3 most often coming out on top. The Xbox 360 took first in one test, but in that situation it was using a wired connection while the other two were not. The Wii consistently came in on the slower side, taking last place in all but one test. The PS3 ranged from .44 to .79 MB/sec, the Xbox 360 from .26 to .86 MB/sec, and the Wii from .30 to .55 MB/sec. What have your experiences been with console download times?
Unless download speeds are tested locally somehow, how can this possibly be accurate? They're downloading the same game, sure, but being served by completely different content providers, and presumably, completely different servers
I think the headline they're looking for is "PS3 managed to connect to faster content provider".
So three different consoles, all downloading from different servers, on different networks, with different network configurations... and they're not even downloading the same data. How, exactly, does this provide ANY sort of statistical value?
Sure they downloaded the megaman 9 demo for each system, but that's 3 different file types on 3 different servers isn't it? they should have done the test by using their browsers to download a common file off a common server like a Linux Distro for a large file test and a few high res pictures of Tux for the small file tests. only then would it be a truly fair test.
He is comparing the download of a demo of an emulated game for all three systems, all of which are "wildly different in size", as he admits in the article.
Mega Man 9 demo, PS3: 63 MB -Mega Man 9 demo, Xbox 360: 88.7 MB -Mega Man 9 game, Wii: 8.3 MB
How many times did he test? Four times, on 3 different peoples connections.
FAIL.
everyone knows the most unbiased test is how fast it downloads porn! what else is worth downloading?
Always get my tech news from them......right
I suppose this could have been a more useless article...if perhaps it was spread across multiple pages in classic C|net style.
I don't own any of the current-gen consoles, so perhaps someone could clue us in: are there serious frustrations with downloading content on the Wii, or for that matter any of the other consoles? I could see how there might be, depending on the way the content is actually delivered.
Please help me pay for room & board.
Mega Man 9 demo, PS3: 63 MB -Mega Man 9 demo, Xbox 360: 88.7 MB -Mega Man 9 game, Wii: 8.3 MB
Of course, he does account for that. He was following their discovery chronologically rather than a more straightforward story. First they downloaded the game and timed it, got some odd results, looked further, and realized the difference in sizes.
It doesn't matter that the file sizes were different, that was accounted for.
Furthermore, all three systems appear to have been tested on each connection, not a PS3 on one connection, a 360 at another house, etc.
Lastly the blog calls for more results. The most valid criticism of the findings is not the methodology but the low numbers, and the author appears to acknowledge that and is trying to do something about that.
But by all means, heap abuse on him for daring to try to compare consoles quantitatively.
I still haven't wrapped my mind around broadband-connected consoles. Today's consoles look so much like computers. When I was a kid, network gaming meant having your friends crowd around an NES.
That said, I plan on getting one for my next gaming platform. I'm tired of messing with system requirements and installs on the PC. I also like the idea of using a wireless controller, so I can lounge when gaming, taking a break from the "hunched over keyboard and mouse" posture that dominates my work week.
Wii may be slower downloads, but when the game is an 8th to a 10th smaller in size then the other consoles, you don't need to be that fast, in all the downloads, wii finished downloading an easy 3-4x faster then the other consoles, and in reality, that is what counts, I don't care if it's downloading slowly if it's coming across quickly, in most of the cases, it was 25-30 seconds for a full game download.
I own both a Wii and an Xbox 360. To me the difference in download speeds doesn't matter very much, the important thing is the console's usability.
If I download Mega Man 9 for the Wii, I have to sit there and watch a progress bar. (Okay, so the progress bar is disguised as Mario punching a bunch of bricks, which is cool, but I still have to wait.)
If I download Mega Man 9 for the Xbox 360, I can go play a different Xbox game while MM9 is downloaded in the background. I get a nice little pop-up when the download is complete and when I want I can switch to my new game.
Because of this, the total file size and download speed don't matter much to me on the Xbox 360.
I don't know how this works on the PS3.
Even the slowest of those results if faster than 2 Mbps.
Ok, the article is quite lousy and he's also comparing apples with oranges here. Another very important factor to consider here is latency and how the consoles deal with that. Sure; downloading stuff on your console (media files for example) can be fun but it becomes important (IMO) when you talk about playing games. It would have been a lot more interesting to see how well the consoles would compare with regards to, for example, the way they deal with latency. From personal experience I can say that the PS3 does an excellent job when it comes to playing multiplayer games over wifi. I don't know how it manages but it sure seems to utilize the full bandwith it has.
Some games (I can only comment in depth on Far Cry 2 and I have minor UT3 experiences) even have build in support to check up on this. So, when you're doing a multiplayer game and rotate to the next map (yes, despite of other stories in an earlier article you can setup a multiplayer game which goes over several maps and then just goes on forever) chances are that you need to download it if you don't already have it (esp. when you're using a custom made map). You get into a screen which shows the status of the players and if some fall behind with regards to downloading the game will simply start up for the 'ready players' while the others continue to download and drop in at a later time. I think thats a brilliant approach, and it would be interesting to see if this approach is the same across consoles and if others (xbox) can cope just as well with this kind of situation.
Or, if you do insist on checking up on raw download power, make something useful from it. Just comparing those is silly (IMO); go beyond it. Use media files of the same size to test your raw power, then start looking at what more the console can do. For example; I managed to play (not too long) movies on my PS3 during downloading over wifi without stalling. In all honesty: that only worked for me once. In other cases it started some heavy buffering, started playing and eventually stalled for the buffer to fill up. (source: Heavenly Sword animated series from the Playstation Store (freely available)). I'd really like to see how the xbox handles things like this. That would be a usefull comparison IMO. Not merely spec comparisons but in field experiences.
And then there's the playing experience. I never had issues on my PS3 with that. In fact, I was amazed to see that even a video chat using the webcam (better put; a PS3 Eye in my case) provided a clear, smooth picture on the other end (the person I was talking to). And all over wifi... And that would be quite interesting to know too IMO; how do other consoles cope with this. Or; can they even cope, naturally some specs will be different but even then it would be a lot more interesting than this article.
Naturally a wired connection is a lot better. For me the wifi usage was temporarily, I now have my PS3 connected by wire and its a lot faster and I don't have stalls with video playbacks from the PSN anymore. So summing up TFA; a missed opportunity. It could have been more interesting.
PS: Too little, too late I know. But I can't help it: in Far Cry 2 you /can/ easily bring up a list of available servers. Just don't select your type of game (capture the diamond, uprising, etc.) but go for a custom game. Then you can select what you wish to look for and in no time get a list of available servers. Personally I like this approach; players who want a "quick" game get diversity and players who want to experiment with setting up servers get a chance too.
It doesn't matter that the file sizes were different, that was accounted for.
Have you ever heard of a thing called "TCP slow start"? Comparing a 8.3 MB download to a 88.7 MB download at download speeds like these is pretty much guaranteed to penalise the smaller download.
FYI, Mega Man 9 isn't being emulated on the Wii. It's a native Wiiware title, that was ported to the 360 and PS3 a few days after release on the Wiistore.
Learn something new.
Is this surprising that with the wii sold like hot cakes there are more people trying to access to Nintendo's download service at a given time than there are for the other two consoles ?
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Well it doesn`t really matter anyway. My ps3 is connected using wireless and my xbox 360 is wired. My 360 is just a little faster but when you factor in the crappy "install" that the ps3 has to do, then the xbox is much faster at downloading a demo or game because you can play right after it is finished!
I don't EVER want to hear of another story on slashdot that begins with "MTV dah dah dah dah dah".
No! That's a bad slashdotter! Bad! We do that outside!
Seriously I thought this was an intellectual community - nobody cares about mtv
and it wasn't even tagged "troll" or "flamebait"? wtf?!
she was the daughter of a wealthy florentine pogen read em and weep was her adjustable slogan
Small file sizes like this are pretty pointless. I would have liked to have seen 1gb demo downloads as seen on the 360.
Even then, using one connection, as I'm sure my 360 does, is not a great test. I can only max out my 20mbit connection (18.5mbit in the real world) by using 20+ connections. I'm yet to find one of these so-called bandwidth test sites that scores me higher than 10mbit - we all know how shite these sites are...
A fuller test is in order.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I sometimes wish that the Wii had a better, multitasking OS with more complex features, but really, when I want that I play on my PC, which can do complex features and graphics better than any console.
One might say that the Wii can multitask better than PCs. Don't believe me? Load Super Smash Bros. Brawl and a PC game that isn't FPS or RTS, and then try starting a 4-player match on each. Chances are that you'll need four machines and four monitors for the PC title and only one machine and (larger) monitor on the console.
Mega Man 9 demo, PS3: 63 MB -Mega Man 9 demo, Xbox 360: 88.7 MB -Mega Man 9 game, Wii: 8.3 MB
whaaaaaaaat.
Nevermind the question of why a recreation of an NES-style game takes 8MB on the Wii, when on the original console the ROM would have been at maximum 1MB -- why, on the other two consoles, is the program size again 8 times larger? For just the DEMO?
Agreed. They should find some other large (750MB+) demo (is Burnout Paradise on the Wiistore?) and do that.
On the PS3 and XB360 they improved the graphics and made it HD. On the Wii they improved the graphics a little and made it compatible with the Wii hardware. It IS emulated. The emulator is wrapped in the game file itself, so is not separate.
Well, it would have to be a bit smaller, as the Wii only has 512MB storage (512 minus space for saves and previously downloaded games).
The largest files would probably be WiiWare titles (other than Mega Man X), or N64 games.
Not only that, but he used slow-ass connections. Neither the servers, nor the systems are likely to be the bottleneck in his tests. .86MB/sec? I've seen 2.2MB/sec downloading from PSN or Live. I'm sure if I had a faster connection (currently 25mbit) the downloads could be even faster.
I'm okay with that penalty: the wii doesn't have background downloading, which makes the wait much more annoying. Wait times on the 360 aren't much of an issue, since I can be playing another game as the file is downloading (I don't know about the PS3, I would guess it also has background downloading.)
Not to mention that factoring that out would be pointless: most of the stuff you can download for the wii is about that size, that's always going to be an issue for the wii.
Probably because the libraries for the other two consoles were bigger, creating a bigger minimum size for any game compiled for that platform.
Also, for quite a few games the "demo" is the full game minus an unlock key (of one or two hundred K), so the whole game is there, but you can't play it until you pay for the "full game" which causes the system to generate an unlock key, and then download it and apply it to your system.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
While interesting, what is the value of this?
Download speed on a console is about the 943rd most important metric to me, right above weight of the system and right below time it takes to push the power button before the system actually gets juice.
The Wii only natively supports 802.11b wireless... that puts them at a serious disadvantage but as for the games themselves, the download speeds are perfectly acceptable.