In a society in which energy consumption continues to rise, as does our ecological impact on the planet, particularly due to the growing number of electrical / electronic devices with more or less high consumption, the problem of limiting the environmental impact of business is increasingly of Companies around the world taken seriously. With console manufacturers (Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) the goal is already to limit that Power consumption of their machines. Yes but nowa report recently published by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental organization, is throwing a rock in the pond for the first two, including Redmond.
The latter points to the high power consumption of new generation consoles. According to the organization, the two machines consume 160 to over 200 watts when used Playing next-gen games, in other words more than their elders and even more than a 60-inch TV. Of course, the Xbox Series X and PS5 use almost nothing at rest (only about 1 watt), but they do NRDC Nevertheless, the two manufacturers criticize the fact that their machines are not configured as a base with energy-saving functions, and incidentally emphasize that a function like the instant start mode of the Xbox Series X only saves 5 to 10 seconds when starting the console. According to Noah Horowitz, one of the NGO’s scholars, the impact of this choice appears to be very small in the short term, but according to modeling made by the NRDCThe difference in energy consumption would be equivalent to the annual electricity production of a large coal-fired power station and would add up to American taxpayers a billion dollars in their energy bills by their estimates. He notes that it is surprising that the benefits of instant console launch mode to users are minimal Microsoft I didn’t go for the base to put the consoles on sleep mode knowing that the Redmond company is aiming for a negative carbon footprint by 2030 and wants to help its partners and customers reduce their carbon footprint . Additionally, by the same estimates, nearly two-thirds of Xbox Series X owners have left instant mode by default, meaning they are “on the verge of wasting nearly four billion kilowatt hours of electricity.” in the U.S. only on standby and not in use until the end of 2025. “According to Noah Horowitz, this corresponds to around three million tons of CO2 emissions. However, the report highlights the inactivity auto shutdown features of the Xbox series and PS5, which reduce their energy consumption.
The organization also adds a nuance to its report through some clarifications. According to her, Machines would be particularly energy-intensive if their performance was stressed, especially with next generation games. On the contrary, if they were used to play previous generation titles, their power consumption would be much less. So in the case of the Xbox Series S, they don’t have the same level of performance as their big sister (which means it can display 1440p at 60 frames per second instead of the Xbox Series X’s 4K 60 fps) so it can still play the same games as at all next-generation consoles, but with lower consumption. And in addition, One of the most energy-intensive activities on consoles is video streaming services.
Tests conducted on Xbox Series S.
In order to Sony and Microsoft Facts that NRDC suggests that they “prepare a public report on the energy consumption of game consoles that will hopefully lead to future energy and carbon savings” and encourages them to further improve the decommissioning methods of automatic voltage and standby machines and find a way to reduce the consumption of machines when they are used for video streaming.
