A couple of days ago, Sony made the announcement that they will be lowering PlayStation download speed to help reduce their service's stress on overall Internet traffic. Now, that same reduction in speed will be making its way to the United States.
The news arrived as an update to the original PlayStation Blog post on the speed reduction. Previously, Sony made the announcement that it wanted to "do [their] part" to reduce overall stress on the Internet. With more and more people staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, many of them are taking this time to game. That means that more people are downloading games and content, and there is only so much Internet bandwidth to go around.
As a consequence, Sony is going to be reducing PlayStation download speed across the board for the United States, following suit with their actions in Europe a couple of days ago. The update states that this only applies to the U.S., so it's unlikely that it will be applied to other countries in North America — although that might change in a couple of days, too.
How Will the Lower PlayStation Download Speed Affect Your Gaming?
If you're worried about high lag ruining your first-person shooter matches, well... that definitely can happen, but it sure won't be Sony's fault. The limitations that they're putting in place will only affect large downloads — that means downloading games or game updates via the Internet.
While playing a game can be intensive on Internet traffic, it pales in comparison to pulling down over a hundred gigs to grab a digital copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or something like that. You will have to wait a bit longer to actually get your games, yes. But if Sony has set things up correctly, you shouldn't have any noticeable effects when actually playing them.
Read more about how the COVID-19 novel coronavirus is affecting the gaming world at our Coronavirus Gaming Convention Cancellations and Game Delays Hub.
What do you think of the lower PlayStation download speed coming to the United States? Are you upset that it will take longer for your games to download? Let us know in the comments below!
