Game Consoles May Cost $1 Billion in Electricity Yearly

[Guest]

The current generation of gaming consoles cost consumers $1 billion in power bills annually, $400 million of that in standby mode.

Game Consoles May Cost $1 Billion in Electricity Yearly : Read more

 

[agentbb007]

My xbox one is using about 18 watts in standby or $0.04 a day. No big deal for me
Streaming netflix the xbox uses 74 watts, my apple tv uses 1.9 watts so I always stream using my apple tv. But even that is just saving pennies a day, the consoles are actually really energy efficient.

 

[Adroid]

Man I can't afford 1 billion a year in electrical to run a console! Good thing I game on PCs. I thought the 60$/game was expensive, sheesh!

 

[bak0n]

you pay .06 a KW/h where you are? Must not live in Commiefornia where we pay close to a quarter a KW/h. Good thing I've got solar.

 

[Quarkzquarkz]

It's called 'vampire' devices and believe it or not, we already waste close to a Billion dollars a year from routers, cable modems, and others that are constantly in the 'on' plugged in. This isn't ground breaking news and not many know about this either.

Best advice? Before going to bed, just simply unplug them, and yes it is tedious and everyone is lazy including me to unplug, and re-plug them early in the morning. But that's the facts, jack~

 

[SteelCity1981]

this was worded wrong. it sounds like a game console would cost that much to run yearly. lol

 

[Amdlova]

play 3 eat 320w ps4 164w max

 

[dextermat]

Hydro-Quebec is "cha-chingiing" right now.....

 

[ocilfa]

Power hogs? lol Just turn off 3 or 4 light bulbs in your house to offset it, if your really that concerned.

 

[baddad]

How do they know, where is the study that shows this and who cares it the consumers bill not theirs.

 

[shaun_shaun]

meanwhile what about the other electrical equipments like refrigerators, air-conditioners, televisions, washing machines... etc ???

 

[whiteodian]

I turned that s#!% off. I keep my Xbone in a cabinet and I noticed it was really hot in there and the fans were blowing so I disabled the quick resume standby and downloading in the background stuff. I can wait a few seconds more for the startup. Also, I open the doors when it is use so it doesn't overheat - I'm not that stupid 😛. I just like to prevent dust buildup.

 

[dstarr3]

I've got everything in my "entertainment center" (TV, consoles, etc.) in the house plugged into a large power strip, and when not in use, I just switch the power strip off. Don't even have to bend over, can flip the switch with my big toe. Pretty simple and effective.

But then again, my computer is on 24/7, so I'm still an idiot.

 

[ddpruitt]

Sensationalist headline. If you actually read the report you realize the authors are basically making stuff up, seriously you think the difference between GDDR5 and DDR3 make a dent in power usage? The methodology on this is really shoddy, there is no report on the different standby modes, and how much power is used in standby versus standby and charging something. The title alone tells you that the authors had an agenda. Consoles are way more efficient than they used to be, switch two of you incandescent bulbs to a CFL and you've basically made up the difference. And let's face it, in standby a console uses far less power than most STBs (last I checked satellite receivers pushed close to 30W). And then of course there's this gem from the appendix:

It is important to note that there is a high level of uncertainty around console usage;

I'm all for better energy efficiency and for all I know they're right, but I think pushing an agenda with with a "report" that contains this level of incompetence is really a disservice to everyone.

 

[danwat1234]

My xbox one is using about 18 watts in standby or $0.04 a day. No big deal for me
Streaming netflix the xbox uses 74 watts, my apple tv uses 1.9 watts so I always stream using my apple tv. But even that is just saving pennies a day, the consoles are actually really energy efficient.

I assume you used a kill-a-watt meter? 18 watts isn't "Standby", the CPU must still be active. I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't designed it to truly sleep with the CPU/GPU unpowered.
74 watts with video, is that just the console or the TV too? 74w is crazy, it must not be using SIMD instructions for decoding the video. A typical low powered Haswell laptop would probably be half that power when watching a movie (including the screen).

I leave my laptop on all the time but it's crunching seti@home on CPu and GPU (Asus G50VT with X9100 CPU). About 115 watts.