Video-game experts say 5G is the key to next-level play, from high-definition mobile gaming to VR experiences

• The video-gaming industry is an early adopter of 5G technology.
• The tech helps game development and playing, especially in the growing sector of cloud gaming.
• It's a key component of AR and VR gaming as more headsets are scheduled to hit the market.
• This article is part of "5G Playbook," a series exploring one of our time's most important tech innovations.

The video-game industry is a behemoth; some estimate it could grow to be worth more than $320 billion this decade. So it's little wonder that it's adopting 5G as a cornerstone technology of its future.

It's the technology that powers mobile broadband, and now 5G is being used to speed up the delivery of games to end players, as well as to reduce latency within mobile games, allowing higher-quality graphics games to be played on mobile hardware, which wouldn't have been possible just a few years ago. It's also kick-starting the cloud-gaming revolution — removing the need for any kind of physical gaming media.

"The big, significant change in having 5G technology for people is obviously that it's faster and more stable internet for everyone," Bhavina Bharkhada, the head of communications and campaigns at Ukie, the trade body for the UK gaming industry, told Insider.

When it's available, 5G offers users higher data-transfer speeds and lower latency, which "help make playing games so much more fun," Bharkhada said.

The lower latency of 5G makes a consequential difference for gamers when they're tasked with making split-second decisions on where to shoot and what to block.

"Low latency is absolutely crucial to all that," she said.

"With faster internet, better connection speeds, and improved connections come a better gaming experience," James Whatley, the chief strategy officer at the gaming-creative agency Diva, told Insider.

The tech offers a revolution in gaming because of the simple advance in infrastructure, Whatley said: "More data packets can be exchanged at speed, meaning higher-quality output of games."

Mobile and cloud gaming could see the most change

For Whatley, there are real opportunities for so-called AAA game studios — the huge companies that release household titles.

"The genuine benefit of 5G is the enablement of AAA game-streaming services," he said. "Being able to boot up the latest AAA release and stream to your handheld or console device at high definition and/or 4K instantly is only really enabled by 5G technology."

Cloud gaming, where you can play games hosted in remote data centers without owning any physical game disc or cartridge, has become a major growth area for the industry. Research from the tech provider Ericsson found that 35 services launched cloud-gaming platforms in 2022, with more expected this year.

One of the biggest and longest-standing cloud-gaming platforms is Xbox Cloud Gaming, which was launched by Microsoft in 2019. Whatley said he believed that the success of Xbox Cloud Gaming was dependent on the rollout of 5G technology worldwide.

Such technology allows players to game not only on their home consoles but also on mobile devices. In previous years, that wouldn't have been possible because of slow internet speeds and the high data volumes required to render graphics and send and receive information about player movements. But with 5G's superfast internet speeds, it's possible to mimic the console experience wherever you are.

Bharkhada said cloud gaming would be a driver of the gaming sector: "5G is going to be really, really important because more players can connect to each other in that multiplayer experience."

At present, 5G is mostly used in mobile games but set to soon be used for cloud and streaming services when it becomes more widely available, as well as a new gaming use case: augmented- and virtual-reality headsets. The release of the Apple Vision Pro in early 2024 may kick-start a race for superfast, immersive games using the headset.

"Suddenly, that technology can be used by anyone," Bharkhada said. "It just opens up a whole host of opportunities that we've probably not had." 

Changes in gaming could trickle down to other industries

What happens in the games industry often trickles down to the wider world in time. Some TV productions, for instance, use the Unreal Engine, a game-rendering service, to produce real-time 3D graphics for sports analysis. Given that, Bharkhada said she believed that an increase in the quality of mobile and cloud gaming would also have positive effects on industries that borrowed elements from the gaming industry.

Video games are used as virtual training platforms for industries where the cost of real-world training is prohibitive, and 5G can help enable that. Also, the promise of immersive gaming through headsets could act as a test bed for real-world developments.

"Using that technology and testing it in our sector to then deploy across other sectors, I think, could be really beneficial," Bharkhada said.