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Does PlayStation Use Data?

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Have you thought about playing your PlayStation but there wasn’t internet? Maybe you were going to use your phone as a hotspot, but did not want to use all of your data? Maybe you weren’t even sure if it used data, but did not want to risk it. Well, in this article we will answer all of your questions. 

So does PlayStation use data?

PlayStation does use data when you are using the console to play online. Although the usage depends upon several factors such as the game you play, the time of play, and the number of running apps and many other things. So even though it does use data, it may not be as much as you think.

Playstation can be used offline just to play the games that you own and of course that would not use data to play those local games as long as your console is not connected to the internet. If it is connected to the internet even playing normal games might use small amounts of data to save your progress or to grant achievements.

If you want to know more about the PlayStation using data and exactly what it uses data for, you will want to keep reading.

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Does it use data to play PlayStation games offline?

There is no exact amount of data that can be estimated for the usage of the PlayStation. There are alot of variables based on what games you play and so on. On average though, playing an online game uses around 200MB of data every hour. This means you can play 4.5-5 hours and only use one GB of data. 

There is no data required to play offline games. However, if you want to enjoy the online games, you will require a data connection. 

When you start using the console, you will need to create the PlayStation Plus account. This is the account required to play online games.

You will also need the PlayStation network membership. Make sure that you have both of them to play online games. 

If you are playing a high-quality game on the PlayStation console, then it will have tons of features. These online games may have a communication feature with other consoles, high-speed bit rate and many other things. This is why there is such a variation of data usage between games. 

There are some situations when the internet through Wi-Fi is not available. Therefore, a lot of people use mobile data for online gaming. If you have unlimited data, then that is not an issue, but since not everyone does then you will want to keep track of how much it uses. 

Data for gaming

Playing games on the internet takes a lot of data. Many gamers use it regularly to play online games. However, some users do not use the data because they consider that it will take up their entire data package and the internet will be completely consumed. 

The truth to this thing is that console gaming does not consume too much data. It would only consume the same amount of data as it would consume on the phone or some other device.

According to estimation, the online games consume around 50 to 500 MB of data per hour however; this value is not fixed as it all depends upon the usage of the gamers. 

You can restrict the data usage by turning the app refresh in the background option to off. From this perspective, your data will only be consumed on the game you play rather than all the other activities.

A lot of data gets wasted if you don’t use it wisely while on the console. Although it is better if you use Wi-Fi or the Ethernet cable internet connection to play games on the internet so you don’t have to worry about how much data you use. Sometimes though your phone connection is better than the internet which is why some people like to use their phone data.

Many people don’t have the facility of broadband internet in their area. In this situation, many people enjoy online games using mobile data. It can sometimes cost you more but you can enjoy the perks of online gaming without any lag. 

In some cases, it is even better to play PlayStation using data. When the internet speed is slow, you can play the games on PlayStation consoles using the data from your phone which today with 5G can be extremely fast. On data mode, it will run smoothly without any lag as the data speed is typically much faster than the broadband speed.

Checking Data consumption in online gaming

Many gamers often test the data consumption of online games by playing different types of games with many other modes.

If you do a detailed comparison of the data consumption of the online games of PlayStation console, you will get to know that the video and audio streaming consumes much more data as compared to the online gaming.

Typically, one hour of live video streaming takes up 5-10 GB of data. On the other hand, data consumption in online video gaming takes up only 100-200 MB of data. It may not be true for all the games but it is certainly the case for most of the games. You can also cut the other data usage areas to save even more data.

Most of the time, gamers complain that these online games consume a lot of data. Well, from detailed research, we have found that it is not the case.

These games did not consider the other variables for data consumption such as downloadable content, in-game downloading and other things. 

The internal servers for the online game can be reduced to make sure that the data is not getting leaked. For Example, if you are playing a game that has two server options, you can choose the smaller one to save data. 

Additionally, you can also limit the activities of voice chatting since it is also a source of data consumption. Although you wouldn’t think that they would use much data, they actually use the same data just as they would consume on a regular smartphone. This is why limiting them will be beneficial for you.

Things to consider when using data

There are many things to consider before using data for the PlayStation consoles. If you use the data wisely, you will have no problem as not much of the data will be consumed.

As long as you do not download anything and keep the updates shut down, you will be able to save a lot of data. 

One to four hours of gaming does not consume up much data as most people think. It does not take up your complete internet bundle as long as you keep the other unnecessary things off. This is why it is important to always turn these other things off before using the games online. 

Conclusion

Now that you know how much data your games use when you play them, you can now safely play online using your phone data and not worry about going over your internet. Most phone companies also have an unlimited bundle which can be useful if you are going to stream or play online games a lot using your phone. Even though it may raise your phone bill, it will save you the hassle of having internet and also having slow speeds. 

No matter if you play online with the internet or with your phone data, you can have fun playing them knowing that you are not using very much data at all. If you were considering buying a PlayStation  now that you know you can use your phone data to play online, this is the best place to buy one.