No matter how fast your new graphics card is or how much RAM is in your console, the biggest limitation for your gaming rig (and the gaming industry as a whole) could just be your Internet connection. At least that was the message Eidos President Ian Livingstone delivered to delegates gathered at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam this week.

"You're kind of holding us back in many respects" he told the audience full of telecom operators from around the world (as reported by Telecoms.com and Total Telecom). "We have to worry about broadband when we should be thinking about making better games."

Even though average broadband speeds are generally increasing worldwide, Livingstone noted total file sizes for modern games are increasing at an even faster rate. Overall download times for digital purchases are getting longer and longer (as anyone who has left their system on overnight to download an MMO well knows). This is a big reason the console market in particular hasn't made a bigger push to an online-only model, Livingstone said. It's why the next generation of consoles will still be centered on disc-based media sold at retail.

Livingstone also pointed out the spread of broadband has yet to eliminate the scourge of lag in online games. To truly fix that problem, service providers will have to start delivering connections with latency of just one video frame, or about 40ms. That's still a long way off for most customers.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Livingstone urged the delegates to increase their bandwidth capacity beyond what is needed at the moment. He drew an analogy to the London sewer system of the 19th century, which was designed at six times the necessary capacity to prevent the need for later upgrades.

"The message is: build bigger pipes and we'll try not to fill them," he said. "ISPs, please do not rest on your laurels."