MTV Multiplayer Determines Which Console Downloads Games the Fastest

The Mana Knight

The Mana Knight

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We pitted the three major consoles against each other, to see which one can download games the most quickly. “Mega Man 9” — at least initially — was the guinea pig on our XBox 360s, Wiis and PS3s…

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I’ve long suspected that my Nintendo Wii is a slowpoke.

All three of my consoles are connected to the same WiFi signal, one the emanates from my landlord’s apartment a floor below mine (we split the bill). When I download games and demos, they always seem to take longest on the Wii.

This past weekend, I convinced Patrick and Tracey here to help me test my theory.

We started with “Mega Man 9,” the only game available for download on all three systems.

I ran the rest first, at 8pm EST on Sunday. I did one at a time. These were the initial results:

-Mega Man 9 demo downloaded and installed on PS3: 142 seconds
-Mega Man 9 demo downloaded on Xbox 360: 345 second
-Mega Man 9 game downloaded on Wii: 27 seconds

Weird numbers, right?

I checked the size of these games. The PS3 and 360 list the size of their gaming content in megabytes. The Wii lists sizes in “blocks.” To figure out how big the Wii version was, I transferred “Mega Man 9″ onto an SD card, put the SD card into my computer and read the file size.

Here are the sizes:

-Mega Man 9 demo, PS3: 63 MB
-Mega Man 9 demo, Xbox 360: 88.7 MB
-Mega Man 9 game, Wii: 8.3 MB

As you can see, Mega Man 9 is not the same size on all machines. In fact, it’s wildly different in size. But we can still figure out speeds and see if my Wii is as slow as I think it is.

Such a discovery calls for some long division, which yielded the following results:

-Mega Man 9 download speed on PS3: .44 MB per second (1st place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Xbox 360: .26 MB per second (3rd place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Wii: .31 MB per second (2nd place)

That leads us to a possible headline: PS3 Downloads Games Faster Than Xbox 360 And Wii

But who can trust one test performed on one Sunday evening by one man? Not I.

Enter Tracey John and Patrick Klepek.

Patrick ran the test last night at 11PM PST with an Xbox 360 wired to his cable modem and a Wii and PS3 hooked up through a wireless g router.

His times:

-Mega Man 9 demo downloaded and installed on PS3: 80 seconds
-Mega Man 9 demo downloaded on Xbox 360: 104 second
-Mega Man 9 game downloaded on Wii: 24 seconds

His speeds:

-Mega Man 9 download speed on PS3: .79 MB per second (2nd place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Xbox 360: .86 MB per second (1st place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Wii: .35 MB per second (3rd place)

Those are different results, which lead to a different possible headline: Xbox 360 Downloads Games Faster Than PS3 And Wii (At least the Wii seems to be consistent here, huh?)

And now for Tracey’s test, which she ran this morning at 9AM ET with all three systems hooked up through a wireless g router:

Her times:

-Mega Man 9 demo downloaded and installed on PS3: 106 seconds
-Mega Man 9 demo downloaded on Xbox 360: 194 second
-Mega Man 9 game downloaded on Wii: 28 seconds

Her speeds:

-Mega Man 9 download speed on PS3: .59 MB per second (1st place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Xbox 360: .46 MB per second (2nd place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Wii: .30 MB per second (3rd place)

So based on her results we’re back to my headline: PS3 Downloads Games Faster Than Xbox 360 And Wii

With the scientific method failing us here, I decided to run one more test. This morning, at the same time Tracey was running her test, I re-downloaded the “Mega Man 9″ content to my systems and re-downloaded one other game each: “World of Goo” on the Wii, “Braid” on the 360 and “Everyday Shooter” on the PS3.

For my second “Mega Man 9″ test I got this:

-Mega Man 9 download speed on PS3: .55 MB per second (1st place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Xbox 360: .31 MB per second (2nd place)
-Mega Man 9 download speed on Wii: .30 MB per second (3rd place)

And for my other test this morning, I got this:

-Everyday Shooter game download speed on PS3: .67 MB per second (1st place)
-Braid game download speed on Xbox 360: .61 MB per second (2nd place)
-World of Goo game download speed on Wii: .55 MB per second (3rd place)

Conclusion: Ok, ok. Let’s collect ourselves. Notice that the only time the Xbox 360 won one of these speed tests above was on Patrick’s wired connection. The Wii never won these contests, supporting my theory that it is a bit slow.

The PS3 is the console that won most of these races. So that’s the headline for now: PS3 Downloads Games Fastest Over Wi-Fi
Click to expand...
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/02/02/which-console-downloads-games-fastest

I actually agree with the results, because in my case I do get the fastest downloads on PSN normally (as long as it isn't on Thursday just after the PS Store updates).

This is an interesting test nonetheless and surprised more sites haven't done it.
 
Unreliable, it's different for everybody. On the PS3 my downloads take hours, no matter the day, on the 360 it only takes minutes. For my friend it takes him twenty to thirty minutes, but never more than an hour. So it can greatly vary. I'm using the RE4 demo as my standard for this.
 
Yeah, PS3 games took quite awhile to download for me in the past
Everyday Shooter is a tiny game, and it took like 30 mins to download
Most XBLA games take about 2-3 minutes for me lol

Like Thongsy said, it's really unreliable, as it is different for everybody ;)
 
[quote name='The Mana Knight']This is an interesting test nonetheless and surprised more sites haven't done it.[/quote]
Because they probably have better things to do...

But honestly I get the best download times on my 360. My PS3 usually takes much longer to download everything and than I have to worry about the install... So even if the game downloaded slightly faster it wouldn't make any difference in the end.
 
I'm with everyone else where 360 downloads are faster and PS3 downloads are horribly slow. I have a pretty good connection and also did all that crap with opening/forwarding router ports.
 
This thread is a little pointless Mana as everyone said it is different for everybody. Sometimes 360 downloads take forever, and sometimes ps3 downloads take forever. Sometimes either can be really fast for me. It really varies. Far as the wii goes I haven't used it enough to know how fast anything is. :roll:
 
Does this even fucking matter? Just leave the thing, come back in a bit, and you'll have the game. I can't imagine somebody deciding on getting a worse version of a game just because it downloads faster...
 
I had a lot of things I was going to say about this but they pretty much all boiled down to this being completely absurd.

I'm going to go to Burger King while my friend on the east coast is at a McDonald's and we're going to see who gets their burger faster!@
 
For me it takes 360 games longer to download for me than PS3 games, even though my 360 is wired and my PS3 is using wifi.

Granted, this is a total reversal of over a year ago as my PS3 took FOREVER to download anything.
 
I find the downloads to be about the same for PS3 and 360 (never download stuff on Wii) but the PS3 takes way too long to get to the point where I can actually play the game. (installed and ready)
 
Only have a Wii and a 360, but they both take forever. Luckily, I can just leave my 360 on, and que up downloads at the online xblm while I'm at work/school so they are ready for me when I get home.
 
The PS3 needs to download faster to make up for the 10 min installs of games/demos/updates..

Damn, that shit was annoying when I had my PS3.

Right, The Mana Knight?
 
I think everyone thinkgs that 360 DLs the fastest simply because it will download everything in the background. On the Wii, you're forced to watch and listen to a realllllllly annoying mario coin screen that is unbearable.
 
[quote name='Thongsy']Unreliable, it's different for everybody. On the PS3 my downloads take hours, no matter the day, on the 360 it only takes minutes. For my friend it takes him twenty to thirty minutes, but never more than an hour. So it can greatly vary. I'm using the RE4 demo as my standard for this.[/QUOTE]It didn't take me any longer really; however, I DO have my router configured for PSN. Configuring a router correctly for PSN (doing some port forwarding) actually makes a pretty big difference for downloads (no joke).

Game patches is a different story because 360 game patches are tiny (like a few MB or less), while PS3 game patches can be 13MB-800MB+.
 
I set up my router for PSN once and it had no effect on my download speeds, sadly. Pretty sure that's just another YMMV.
 
I have my router set up for the PSN, and sometimes I just put it in the DMZ so it won't be blocked by the firewall and it's still the same regardless. Sometimes slightly faster than normal, but it's usually on the slow side.
 
if u manage ur time, it really doesnt matter which takes longer. ive never just sat waiting for a game for even a minute. i start a bunch of downloads before i go eat and when im back they're done. i dont even know how long they take, i just go do something else for a bit.
 
My experience is completetly the opposite from whats in the OP.

I posted this in the GGT back when it happened but the NXE and a PS3 update rolled out at roughly the same time so I had a race. NXE downloaded and installed in less than 2 minutes. The PS3 update took 14 minutes to download and then took some time to install. If you ask me, that's just completely ridiculous given that the NXE is entire revamp of the dashboard system while the update tweaks a few minor things.

Anyway, the speed difference was also the case with the RE5 demo. I downloaded the 360 version in about 2 minutes. It took me about 10 PLUS install time on top of that on the PS3. This is generally the way it always goes. Just about the only dl where my 360 doesn't blow the PS3 out of the water is for themes, but the difference there is negligable anyway.
 
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