how come digital playstation games take so long to install but physical playstation games installs in minutes?

To install a digital game you have to:

* Download the file.

* Uncompress the file (optional)

* Run the installer.

* Clean up the downloaded file(s)

* Run the game.

To install a game from disc you:

* Run the installer.

* Copy the files to the hard drive.

* Run the game.

Your console's blu-ray drive is capable of copying data from the disc at over 50MByte/sec, or about 400mbps. Most peoples' internet connection isn't that fast, and when you're talking about games that are 10GB, 20GB even over 50GB so that's going to take time.

Uncompressing the file and then installing the game takes time.

Part of it is that the whole game has to download for a digital copy. But many disc games take just as long because they have large files to install and huge updates to download before you can play.

Because the digital ones are being downloaded.