The typical gamer’s console is not used all day, so they do not need to worry about power consumption, right? According to a study done at Carnegie Mellon University, it looks like game consoles waste a lot of energy when not used. It seems that the average user does not actually power down his console, instead leaving it in idle mode. Becauase of this, 68 percent of all games console energy consumed in 2010 was while the device was in idle mode.
The study focussed on US households, and it found that game consoles now contribute to 1% of all household energy usage, which is a 50 percent increase within a year. The primary reason for this high energy usage is that the average games console does not power down when unused – and if it is set to switch off automatically, the delay is very long. For example, the Xbox 360 only powers down after 1 hour in idle mode, but not while in game mode while paused.
The Playstation 3 does not power down by default, and requires the user to download a software update to make it power down automatically. “We demonstrate that the most effective energy-saving modification is incorporation of a default auto power down feature, which could reduce electricity consumption of game consoles by 75 percent (10 TWh reduction of electricity in 2010),” says the authors.
So users are recommended to switch on their console auto-download functions – you can read the full research document here.
