Cornwall gamers could wait two days to download GTA VI

Picture release day. The game is out, your friends are already playing, and the progress bar on your console says 44 hours remaining.

That is the wait some rural households could face when Grand Theft Auto VI launches on 19 November, according to new analysis from broadband provider Wildanet. On the fastest connections, the same download could be done in about 20 minutes.

How big is GTA VI?

Nobody outside Rockstar Games knows yet. The developer has not confirmed the final download size, so Wildanet has run the numbers on three scenarios.

Early reports suggest the game could be between 150 GB and 200 GB, with some estimates stretching to 600 GB.

The wait on a copper line

For a household on a 10 Mbps copper connection, Wildanet calculates a 150 GB download could take 33 hours and 20 minutes. At 200 GB, that becomes 44 hours and 27 minutes.

And that is before allowing for game updates, busy launch-day servers, WiFi signal issues or other people in the house using the internet.

If the largest estimate of 600 GB turned out to be right, the same 10 Mbps line would need 132 hours. That is five and a half days.

How the speeds compare

At the UK median broadband speed of 73.21 Mbps, a figure taken from Uswitch broadband speed statistics, the download could take between four and a half and six hours.

On a 500 Mbps full fibre connection it could be finished in under an hour. On a 1 Gbps service, Wildanet puts it at 20 to 27 minutes under ideal conditions.

Connection	150 GB	200 GB	600 GB
Rural copper at 10 Mbps	33 hrs 20 mins	44 hrs 27 mins	132 hrs
UK median at 73.21 Mbps	4 hrs 33 mins	6 hrs 4 mins	18 hrs 13 mins
Full fibre at 100 Mbps	3 hrs 20 mins	4 hrs 27 mins	13 hrs 20 mins
Full fibre at 500 Mbps	40 mins	53 mins	2 hrs 40 mins
Full fibre at 1 Gbps	20 mins	27 mins	1 hr 20 mins

What Wildanet says

Simon Hughes, Chief Commercial Officer at Wildanet, said: “For millions of households, gaming is one of the clearest examples of how quickly everyday life is becoming more data hungry. Nobody wants to spend release day watching a progress bar, especially when a big download can also slow down streaming, home working, video calls and everything else people rely on their connection for.

“For people still using older copper broadband, downloading a game of this size could mean waiting more than a day and tying up the home internet in the process. Full fibre makes a real difference as it gives households the speed and capacity to download the latest games far more quickly, while the rest of the family can stay online.”

Wildanet, which is expanding its full fibre network across Cornwall and Devon, says the figures point to a growing gap between homes with full fibre and those still on ageing copper lines. Availability by postcode can be checked on the Wildanet website. More technology news from Cornwall is on CornishStuff.

The small print

The 150 GB, 200 GB and 600 GB figures are illustrative estimates only. The download times assume a constant connection running at its full advertised speed, which is not how most home broadband behaves on a busy evening.

Wildanet also notes that real download and installation times may be longer at release, when game servers face exceptional demand.

Rockstar Games has still not said how big the game will be.