The Role of Broadband Internet Entertainment: Supporting High-Speed Data Bandwidth For Consistent Gaming
To say that the global Internet has come light years is like saying snow isn’t white. Believe it or not, especially if you are a millennial reading this article, there was a time when just simply logging onto the Internet with a mouse click or a tap of the phone wasn’t possible. Thanks to massive evolutions with the Internet, physical media, like entertainment and gaming, are now primarily online. This blog post explores the role and just how invaluable broadband internet is with today’s streaming entertainment and online gaming.
- The Growing Need for Greater Bandwidth
With so much talk about AI technology taking over, one thing is clear: the lines between the physical and virtual continue to get blurred. Even before the Great Recession and today’s extraordinary inflationary times, the world of physical businesses was running into significant snags. To cut costs and to make their businesses more profitable, many businesses, especially the more affluent ones, switched to online businesses.
Of course, this switch was made possible and encouraged with higher and more consistent bandwidth. With dial-up modems all but gone and fiber internet challenging cable internet for supremacy, we are indeed in the golden age of the Internet. Taking notice of the tremendous growth of broadband internet is the entertainment and gaming industries.
- The Switch to Online Entertainment
The concept of online entertainment isn’t a new one. When the dial-up modem first hit homes in the early 1990s, most of the major entertainment companies weren’t too keen to switch over. However, with the rise of computer games, the wheels of change slowly began to take root.
Even though most computer games required a floppy disk and later a CD-ROM to install, they began experimenting with subtle online upgrades and tournaments. First-person shooting games like Doom and Quake were the pioneers of using the Internet to create the hybrid gaming experience.
Believe it or not, before the rise of today’s masterful real money and sweepstakes casinos, it was the iGaming industry that really pioneered online entertainment. Even with the extreme limitations of dial-up Internet and Flash technology, the seeds for sophisticated online gaming were finally sown.
Even with higher-speed DSL coming into more households by the end of the 90s, the total weight of the online entertainment industry still wasn’t unleashed. By the mid-2000s, broadband internet was becoming more popular, as were the next-generation home consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox One.
These consoles really helped online entertainment take off. Signature game series like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and the Resident Evil Series began to offer more online features compared to those that actually came with the game cartridge.
- Online Gaming and Entertainment Takes Over
As broadband and cable internet became more affordable and the next-generation home consoles like PlayStation 4 took off, online gaming, specifically, became the dominant form of gaming. Most PlayStation 4 games require online access to unlock critical game features. Eventually, the game cartridges were replaced in favor of special codes to unlock the games online.
Come the 2010s, the Nintendo Switch encouraged online access to purchase and download all of the other Nintendo games from the original Nintendo and Super Nintendo. Going one step further, Nintendo actually purchased the other gaming libraries for Atari, the Jaguar, Sega, Neo Geo, and Turbo Graphics 16 games. For video game purists, especially Generation X, who grew up with consoles, having a consistent bandwidth to download these games was too much.
- Broadband Internet Ushers in Online Gaming Tournaments
With online gaming so evolved and in demand, the world of online gaming tournaments went nuclear. The first step of online gaming was to gently introduce multi-player gaming online, but the pinnacle is online gaming tournaments. With million-dollar pots at stake, broadband internet has become so reliable and available that more gamers continue to flock to the Internet to become the top prize winner or at least compete for lucrative prizes.
Because broadband internet is so consistent and reliable, players can play and bet fearlessly without glitches. Despite limited bandwidth, the problem with the early forms of the Internet was throttling and completely cutting off. With untimely glitches, many gamers and players were originally hesitant to play online, but not anymore.
- Cutting the Cord to Go with Online Streaming
It’s no mystery that legacy media has been on life support in recent years. In fact, entire major publications have ceased publications entirely to go strictly digital. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the movie, television, and radio industries are now thriving online.
With the soaring costs of physical cable television, more people are enjoying watching their favorite movies and television shows with streaming powerhouses like Netflix and Hulu. Because broadband internet is reliable and stable, moviegoers can even watch multiple streams from the same bandwidth with flawless precision.
- Conclusion
As fiber internet continues to take off, the possibilities for nearly limitless bandwidth are within reach. Also, AI continues to play a heavier role in the future of Internet. Today, online gamers and movie watchers prefer more personal and interactive gaming and movie-watching experiences. And with the tremendous bandwidth AI continues to deliver, in addition to more voice command approaches, the future of online entertainment is what the user wants it to be.
