Consoles Worldwide Use 16 Billion Kilowatt Hours per Year Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Consoles Worldwide Use 16 Billion Kilowatt Hours per Year Posted by XanTium | November 22 23:21 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From nytimes.com: [QUOTE] In a new study about how much energy video game consoles consume, the Natural Resources Defense Council found that consoles in use today consume "an estimated 16 billion-kilowatt hours per year," which, the report goes on to translate, is "roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego." Noah Horowitz, a senior scientist at NRDC and the study's lead researcher, said gamers often leave consoles on when they're not playing in order to return to the middle of a level that can't be saved and reloaded in the same place if the power is turned off. Similar to the hibernating mode available to Windows and Mac computer users, Mr. Horowitz says such a feature for game consoles would help save energy while preserving the player's progress. "If nobody hits the controller for one hour or whatever time you set, the console would go into a lower power state, but before it does it would take a snapshot of your game, and when you come back you go right back where you were." In terms of overall energy use for the best-selling consoles -- whether regularly turned off or not -- the report describes Nintendo's Wii, which draws 16 watts of power when in use, as a "juice sipper." Microsoft's Xbox 360, drawing 119 watts while active, sits in the middle. Sony's PlayStation 3 was rated as the power hog, at 150 watts while in use. [/QUOTE] Full Story: nytimes.com

[Mushy2000]

Oops... I leave my 360 on 24/7 I have for the past 2 years basically, and still works fine... I treat my 360 like a computer, and it still works great... only thing I have had to do is replace the DVD drive, because I wore it out from leaving it on while a disc is in, so it's always spinning, good thing with the NXE I can install to the HDD so that shoulnd't be a problem anymore.

[wmxp]

This is an excellent article! These next gen consoles are power consuming monsters, and I most certainly am guilty of the "leave console on because saving sucks." A hibernation feature would be fantastic!

[Anth]

Microsoft's Xbox 360, drawing 119 watts while active, sits in the middle. Sony's PlayStation 3 was rated as the power hog, at 150 watts while in use.

Not wanting to be pedantic, but this is actually too much of a generalisation.

Running a test on my system with a watt meter from Maplins, and using Fifa09 in hidef through HDMI, the Ps3 uses ~113 watts during game play.

This is the 65nm CPU/65nm GPU version.

Running Fifa on my Xenon Xbox (component connected in hidef) uses ~170w (bounces between 160w-175w). which is one hell of a power hog.

So it seems this article has possibly compared the Falcon with the 60GB PS3?

As the new PS3s are very power efficient.

[Naquadah]

Oops... I leave my 360 on 24/7 I have for the past 2 years basically, and still works fine... I treat my 360 like a computer, and it still works great... only thing I have had to do is replace the DVD drive, because I wore it out from leaving it on while a disc is in, so it's always spinning, good thing with the NXE I can install to the HDD so that shoulnd't be a problem anymore.

When you install a game on the 360 the disc still spins actually, just at like 4x instead of 12x, i dont think the disc ever stops spinning in the 360

[Jiiks]

When you install a game on the 360 the disc still spins actually, just at like 4x instead of 12x, i dont think the disc ever stops spinning in the 360

when you're playing it does stop. When in dash it spins @ 4x or so.

[sinister slipknot]

So what they're saying is that it doesn't take a lot of energy to make stupid amounts of noise

[bucko]

They making this out to be a bad thing, when the whole of the UK has street lights on permanently every night. What ever.

[spinr34]

the problem with this brilliant low power mode 'snapshot' idea is that is basically the same thing as saving in a game. games might as well allow you to save your current point at any time and then you could just turn it off to save more power. however, games have checkpoints and saves at certain areas for a reason. you kinda lose the essence of the game if you can just low power mode it or save at any point.

i guess low power mode is more like a 'suspend' but again, i argue, if it is going to temporarily save the data, why not make it a real save and just turn it off to save more power since that is the main concern here.

[Panda Casanova]

I would kill for a save state feature for 360 like we have for emulators... Of course it couldn't work in exactly the same way though.

[sinister slipknot]

the problem with this brilliant low power mode 'snapshot' idea is that is basically the same thing as saving in a game. games might as well allow you to save your current point at any time and then you could just turn it off to save more power. however, games have checkpoints and saves at certain areas for a reason. you kinda lose the essence of the game if you can just low power mode it or save at any point.

i guess low power mode is more like a 'suspend' but again, i argue, if it is going to temporarily save the data, why not make it a real save and just turn it off to save more power since that is the main concern here.

Yeah it's more of a long-term pause, which you could do anyway but this way would just save more electricity, but like bucko says, its not as if its the worlds biggest waste of electricity.

[warbeast]

mine is alright as i have my 360 powered by a push bike for my wife to keep fit while i play
i just need another wife for my lcd now

[tristanx]

over here in san jose, ca we have streets that get lit up all night long. stevens creek and capital expressway come to mind. these car dealerships keep there lights on all night and those things are bright. i was also working at building doing some a/c control work in dublin and the lights where on and no one was there.

do big companies really need to light up there buildings all night?

i don't leave my xbox 360 on when not in use by the way... but now i am!!!

This post has been edited by tristanx: Nov 24 2008, 06:40 AM

[Zod5000]

I always turn mine off when its not in use. I'm afraid of getting the RROD.. lol.

[Naquadah]

when you're playing it does stop. When in dash it spins @ 4x or so.

wrong, when playing it still spins, i have a window in my case