I think for gaming oriented devices this trend will continue for some time. _maybe_ with exception of some nintendo consoles which are more casual.

That being said.. I am gaming on wifi regularly and have no in-game issues related to it (low ping, stable connection, same room as the router, 5Ghz band only used by the machine on which I game + work machine, but those don't happen at the same time).

I think you'll see it on anything that someone wants to do "cloud gaming" on, by which I mean, the full "run the GPU in the cloud and stream the video back" thing.

I've used Steam Link on a computer in my living room running Wifi to the internal router that runs a wire to the receiving TV. My wifi is one of those dedicated mesh router things that is as solid as you can buy. And it mostly works... but still has occasional jank and even more occasional bad days where it never stops working but noticeably drops resolution a lot.

It's just too easy for an otherwise functional home Wiki connection on its own to eat all the latency budget or more for that style of gaming. And the companies really want you locked into more subscriptions, not owning your games, and streaming everything if at all possible, so I'm sure they'll continue building the hardware for it. Ethernet is cheap; not so cheap you can't save a lot of money over several million consoles, but so cheap that it's a no-brainer for this purpose; retaining one marginal customer on the cloud service that works on ethernet but not on their wifi pays for hundreds of ethernet ports, if not thousands.

I couldn't handle Steam Link on WiFi. For anything beyond Stardew Valley and Rimworld the sudden quality drops and latency were too jarring. After setting up an additional gigabit switch for the bedroom and running some Cat5e it works well enough for most FPSs.

Now PS5 supports 802.11ax that supports OFDMA. It would be significant difference for multiple device heavy usage if it works correctly.

For games that require low latency, such as twitch shooters and (traditional) fighting games, a wired connection is indispensable. I don't think the "hardcore" platforms will ever remove it.

Regarding Nintendo, while they've never shipped a console with an Ethernet port built-in, they have supported it since the GameCube (Broadband Adapter); the Wii, Wii U, and Switch all accept standard USB Ethernet dongles. Use of these adapters is somewhat widespread on the Switch, particularly for Mario Maker and Smash (although this is more due to Nintendo's incompetency with netcode than inherent latency in Wi-Fi).

It's not for the latency, its to maximize your bandwith for downloads and updates which are in the 100s of gbs these days.

It's absolutely for the latency, it's almost a faux pas to play the games I mentioned online at a high level without an Ethernet adapter (since there's a decent chance you'll get a match with others who are). Additionally, the Switch is the sole major gaming platform which has avoided the bloat endemic everywhere else; there are no games on the platform anywhere even close to triple-digit GBs in size, or even half that.

For playing games, wifi shouldn't be a problem, you don't need that much bandwidth for just the comms between players.

For downloading games though, heck. 25GB is like a minimum now, and some go north of 100GB.

In 2020 bandwidth is never a problem. Intermittent or noisy connections definitely are, though.

If you live somewhere with a crowded Wi-Fi spectrum you'll have connectivity issues daily.

>In 2020 bandwidth is never a problem

...unless you live in a rural area. I’d hate to download a 50GB day 1 patch on 5mb/s DSL

You'll probably have way better experience playing games on a rural 5Mbit DSL than on a 300Mbit Fiber connected via crowded city wifi.

Games don't need bandwidth when playing multiplayer, they need stable jitter and no packet loss.

I think OP meant internal network bandwidth. Ethernet isn't going to help you if you have a 5mb/s DSL line.

> In 2020 bandwidth is never a problem.

Unless you live in a rural area.

Or literally anywhere in Australia.

> If you live somewhere with a crowded Wi-Fi spectrum you'll have connectivity issues daily.

Like everyone who lives in a city does.

WiFi tends to be a problem for games that require very low latency like fighting games

https://youtu.be/yanKfSc1_Sc

I was going to mention that actually! Most of my FG days were with ethernet :)

It's latency that tends to be the problem with wireless connections, not bandwidth.

for playing any competitive game, wifi is a huge problem

Well, clearly false for competitive but turn-based games.

Maybe so for competitive, realtime games; certainly wired will generally be lower latency, all other things being equal.

Nintendo heavily promotes their USB-to-LAN adapter in videos mentioning on-line gameplay.

Even the Nintendo Switch supports (some) USB Ethernet adapters.

This thing does have wifi 6. Hopefully that helps some.

>I'm really glad to see that these new consoles will continue to have ethernet ports

I expect mainline consoles will have a hardwire option (ethernet or otherwise) forever. There are game genres (like fighting games) that are latency sensitive and it would kill the competitive scene for that console if Wifi was the only option available.

Wifi is very pratical, but Ethernet > wifi. Wharever I can, I se ethernet.

For me, it's less about the latency, and more about reducing congestion for other devices that don't have other options (i.e. mobile devices). My laptop docking station is cabled too for this reason.