Video game consoles are a consumer product that regulators scrutinize, particularly with regard to the products used to manufacture them and their consumption. Amidst all of this, Microsoft has made improvements to Xbox’s Energy Saver mode, as well as some changes to its manufacturing to make it more durable.
When designing new products, industrial engineers face two challenges before regulators let them sell them on the market: sustainability and carbon footprint. That’s why even products that have already been released receive regular version updates not to reduce cost or performance, but to reduce their environmental impact.
We can now download with Energy Saver mode on Xbox
Xbox One and Series consoles have two different sleep modes, the first of which is classic Be ready, while the second is el Energy savingr. where the second consumes 20 times less than the first, but it does this by lowering the clock speed of the few currently active components. The consequences are that the second mode becomes extremely slow in the previous generation of consoles, but not with the new one since the access speed to the SSD is much higher and this makes it possible to compensate for the latency and to go just as fast. Quick.
However, Energy Saver mode did not have the ability to download in the background, as it also disabled the console’s network card and WiFi. Well, in the words of Dave McCarthy, Corporate Vice President of Xbox, we are going to see a series of changes in the console reduce the carbon footprint generated by their systems
In addition, Microsoft intends to halve the energy consumption of its cloud gaming platform, XCloud, by using renewable energy sources to power its servers. Which we also hope will get an update as they are based on your current Series X hardware and we have no doubt we will see a revamped version which is more efficient and therefore with higher performance per watt per compared to the current model.
Monitoring systems in Microsoft consoles
Microsoft also claims to have added consumption monitoring systems to a specific batch of consoles. This will allow them to collect data as different users play. The idea is to use them to implement small improvements that reduce consumption, especially forced by political pressures around the world due to the problem of climate change.
Carbon footprint reduction measures have already started at the end of 2021, but not only at the circuit level, but also in the use of console and control boxes, where they use already recycled products and reduce the amount of resins used in plastics. So don’t be surprised to see news where it says that the materials are different from the first console deliveries, but we don’t expect an industrial overhaul.