How can the right storage solution enhance your gaming experience?

The right storage solution can enhance your gaming experience by providing faster load times and improved overall performance. SSDs have faster read and write speeds, which means that games will load and run faster, additionally, will reduce stuttering and lag during game play.

The gaming industry has seen explosive growth in the past few years, especially during the pandemic. People spent more time on gaming as the medium was a convenient way to spend time during stay-home orders, lockdowns, and social distancing.

However, one of the common challengesevery gamer often comes across is storage issues, specifically for console gamers. We spoke to Sameer Bhatia, Director of Asia Pacific Consumer Business Group, and Country Manager for India & SAARC, Seagate Technology to understand the role of right storage solution.

How can one overcome storage constraints on gaming consoles?

Consoles usually offer limited internal storage space and have specific requirements for interoperability with external storage.Take PS5 as an example, while it has 825GB of internal storage, only 667.2GB frees for games, as system files take up the remaining storage.Owners of consoles have to always find ways to optimise their storage space if they want to have more games stored.

This is where external storage like HDD and SSD is here to help. These external storage drivesgive gamers more spaceand better gaming performance which in return help to enhance the gaming experience.

There are external harddrives andstorage expansion cardsdesigned to work in harmony with PlayStation and Xbox consoles, allowingthe gamer to conquer their gaming limits to build their game vault and collect titles without fear or maxing out on space. These drives are also lightweight and offer plug-and-play installation making it easy for gamers to take the whole library with them and play from anywhere.

When playing on a PC or console, all the data processing, graphics, and video rendering download speed can affect the gaming experience.SSDs help to shorten the loading time and provide a smoother experience in games that stream assets from storage.With blistering transfer speeds of up to 7,300MB/s, Seagate’s FireCuda 530 SSD offer gamers to game confidently by adding intense speeds, lasting endurance, and large capacity to improve storage performance.

As the game sizes continue to grow over time and it will continue to with the changing technology dynamics, having the right storage is important as it does affect the gaming experience. After all, no one like sacrificing graphics, latency, load times, or framerates when comes to gaming.

What are the future developments and projections for storage in the gaming industry?

According to a KPMG report, India's gaming industry is expected to grow rapidly from INR 43.8 billion today to INR 118.8 billion by 2023, representing a 22.1% increase. With an abundance of data available to make highly personalised and receptive games, we can already see this growth fuelled by the advancements like high-fidelity graphics, streaming, cloud gaming, virtual and augmented reality, and Metaverse already in use.

Cloud gaming is also set to be the next big thing given its benefits like high security, cost-effective setups, and compatibility that overcomes the drawbacks of just being able to play games on certain consoles. Hence, it does not require gamers to spend excessively on gaming hardware or updating their gaming systems. As per a recent report by Grand View Research, Inc, the global cloud gaming market size is likely to reach USD 20.94 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 45.8% from 2022 to 2030. Adding to that, live streaming will be another significant trend that will make them more interactive.

Sameer Bhatia, Director of Asia Pacific Consumer Business Group and Country Manager for India & SAARC, Seagate Technology