 Why do games take so long to install on PC, Xbox, and PS4? Most modern games take at least an hour to install and download, but why can't it just be faster, like downloading an image? Basically, it's because games, especially modern ones, can take a width of 100GB of storage. An image is like 5MB, so downloading games is like downloading 200,000 images. But why can't your PC just download faster? Well, it depends on a lot of factors. First, you have your internet connection. If you don't have a fast or stable connection, it will drastically slow down your download speed. Next are your background tasks. There isn't really a good way to make it download faster because usually the internet your device is using is most likely the fastest it can download. Using ethernet is a good way to speed up your download speeds, but I would say just wait a couple hours is the best way to go at it. It will boost the download speeds, but not by that much. If you have an open game while downloading another one, it will slow down the download to try to give you a better connection in the game you're playing. Most of the time, however, it would also struggle to run the game at low ping when downloading. That's why launchers pause downloads when you try to update or play another game. It also depends on where you downloaded the game from. If you download it from Chrome, it will be quite slow because Google isn't used to downloading 30GB games at high speeds. That's why Steam built their own download server so that users can download and install their games faster. This however affects the download speed. Since there are a lot of players trying to download their games at the same server at the same time, it will take slower because so many people are using it. They have to decompress these large files without losing any data and install it all after. Games take up so much space because they're getting more graphically demanding as well as getting bigger and having more content. This all comes at a cost because it would take more space to download and then install. It's not just as simple as a one hour video, but it's more of an app or software. A wide misconception is that download speeds are faster on an SSD compared to a hard drive. These are mainly dependent on your internet. This is because it has to get files from the internet to the device. The soft speeds however can vary, but it's taking a file from your computer or console and making it playable. So in conclusion, just be patient with the download. Your internet is trying its hardest and you can just speed it up by minimizing your task and connecting to Ethernet. It has to download a ton of files and install them.