According to a report done by the Natural Resources Defense Council, video game consoles consume a “staggeringly high” amount of energy. NRDC and Ecos Consulting performed the first ever comprehensive study on the energy use of video game consoles and found that they consumed an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year — roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego. We could save approximately 11 billion kWh of electricity per year, cut our nation’s electricity bill by more than $1 billion per year, and avoid emissions of more than 7 million tons of CO2 each year. Obviously, it depends on how often a user plays to determine how much of an effect he or she has on these numbers.
**Image from NRDC “Lowering the Cost of Play” report**
Apparently, if it is left on continuously the Playstation 3 or XBOX 360 will consume the same amount of energy as two new refrigerators over the course of a year. NRDC provided recommendations for users, video game console manufacturers, component suppliers and the software companies that design games for improving the efficiency of video game consoles already in homes as well as future generations of machines yet to hit the shelves.
If you recall, on a recent update for the Playstation 3, one of the new features added to this high-tech console was the option to enable “power-saving auto shutdown mode”. (I will include instructions on how to edit this option at the bottom of this article).
According to the study, the Playstation 3 is the most power-hungry model. For the 2007 version, you’ll spend about $12 a year if you turn the console off when you’re not using it, compared to about $134 if you leave it on all the time. With all the hype about how much more of an “advanced” system it is, I’m not surprised. The XBOX 360 ranks a close second. If you shut it down when you’re not playing a game or watching a movie, it costs about $11 to operate annually. Leaving it on continuously will cost you $103. The cheaper and less technologically advanced Nintendo Wii uses significantly less energy than the others. It costs about $3 a year if you turn it off after use, compared to about $10 if you don’t.
The report also gave some tips for consumers to be more energy efficient. Some are pretty obvious ways to save. Always turn the system off when you are done playing a game or watching a movie. Don’t assume that just because you turn off the TV that your console shuts down too. It doesn’t. If you’re in the middle of the game, save it so that you can pick up where you left off. Enable the automatic power down feature, which will shut down your device if it’s left idle for a certain amount of time, which I will explain how to do at the bottom of the article. Last but not least, limit movie watching on gaming devices. Viewing movies on a stand-alone unit is a lot more efficient. The Playstation 3, for example, uses five times more power than the stand-alone Sony Blu-Ray player to play the same movie. I personally will probably play my Playstation 3 the same amount as before and use the Blu-Ray player just as often, since I only have one anyways. As far as the “auto shutdown” feature, I think it is a good idea. Not only will you be saving money by saving energy, but you might also be saving your console by not making it work as hard for a prolonged period of time which may lead to overheating and/or other issues.
Instructions For Power Save Settings:
1.Turn on the Sony Playstation. At the main menu screen scroll to the left to the System Settings tab, then scroll down to Power Save Settings and press select. 2.In the Power Save Settings select the System Auto-Off option. A column on the right side of the screen will appear showing five time options: After 1 hour, After 2 hours, After 3 hours, After 5 hours, Off. Scroll over to 1 hour and press select. (They recommend 1 hour for maximum energy savings.) 3.Once the time function is selected a new screen will pop up. In this screen the user is given the option to turn off the system automatically “even under special conditions.” Check this box and click OK. (Enabling the special conditions function will allow the auto-shutdown feature to work even if you have a game or movie inserted in the console and on its main menu page. Without it, the console will not turn off during video or game play, including idle menu page screens – making it rarely effective.) 4.Once the user has returned to the Power Save Settings screen, he or she can select the Auto-Off feature for the controller as well, further increasing energy savings.
