Ben-DutkaWill your electric bill change significantly if you start playing a next-gen console often?
Yeah, actually. According to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consume more energy than the machines from the previous generation.
NRDC director of high-tech energy efficiency Pierre Delforge told USA Today that they don't have a problem with people playing games, but the new systems do use a hefty chunk of energy. Even though the consoles feature energy efficient features, the new standby or sleep modes increase energy consumption by a lot. The NRDC says that if all previous-era machines were replaced with next-gen consoles, they'd use about 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in a year, or approximately the output of four large power plants.
The Wii U is the only system to reduce its energy consumption as compared to the previous model. Yeah, well…that's about all it has going for it right now, anyway.
I wonder if gamers even care? Lost in worlds while their own world is being lost.
Well, if you're talking about gamers that have a lot of game systems hooked up in their living-room, I suspect that those type of gamers do care.
Unless they're not the ones paying the electric bill.
How's a little extra electricity use gonna destroy the world?
Well it depends how that electricity is produced, but if millions of people are using a little extra could have a significant impact.
Solar Power is your friend!
Poetic, IrreducibleSUN! Pure poetry.
Seriously if most houses in the the USA or world just had one small solar panel…
Our government offers buy-back subsidies to people that put solar panels on their roof… but the policies are twisted and strange… it ends up costing you more to install them in the long run… so few people do it…
Ah well… a tiny step in the right direction. lol. We'll get it right eventually, I hope.
I don't use the standby mode, it's never wise to just leave a console on no matter what. I shut that biatch down cold.
Me too. Why risk the constant heat, I figure. Besides, I usually use my system start-up times to take a pee break. Why break from gaming early than I need to? Efficiency all around!
I care,
I even had a special off/on switch adapter that I had ordered from Hongkong for my Slim since it didn't have a on/off switch ashe original PS3's had.
But now it's gone bad over time, so now for the moment, I'm reduced to pulling the power cord out of my slim after every single use.
Hell, I can't stand anything what-so-ever that still leaves a always-glowing little red light on when they're off, just like all of our Slims do.
BTW, here's a real shocker for those who own a PS3 Slim……
Even when your Slim is (supposedly off), it's actually not, as it's still powering full juice through your HDMI cable while in full off mode…….Yup, it's true!!!!!
FYI, the way I actually found this out is that I added a 5-way HMDI switcher to one of my HDTV's two HMDI inputs(now 7 instead of 2) and it lights up on the specific #1 slot of the five numbered switches that's being used & powered up at that moment.
But even after I've turned my Slim off, it's still sending it's output to that #1 slot on my HMDI switcher & it's keeping that #1 slot's switch constantly lit.
So the only real way to "actually power off" the Slim altogether is to either buy a off/on adapter like I had(on Ebay for about $3-4 bucks), or actually pull the power cord out after each use.
So here's 2 important things to ponder with this Slim issue…
1. How much electricity is it actually wasting while in that semi-off mode every year????
2. And could this semi-off/semi-on issue actually become a huge fire hazard over time???
Last edited by BikerSaint on 5/18/2014 11:41:22 PM
I shut my PS4 down completely every time I get through with it. Unless I fall asleep with it on, I never use standby mode.
well thats no good no wonder the power bill when up i thought i was supposed to be the low power mode.
happy gaming =)
it could be worse though. The PS3 phat was a massive hog when it was on. That thing had a ~430 Watt power supply. Ouch.
The XO and PS4 both weigh in much lower. So despite the perspective on the info being referenced here, we're doing much better this gen than we were during the last.
EDIT: so all they're doing is attacking standby mode
Last edited by Temjin001 on 5/19/2014 9:26:00 AM
btw, the PS4 in standby modes draws ~10 watts. In peak gaming moments like in the heat of battle of KZ, it gets up to 144-151 watts.
EDIT: and the PS4's power supply weighs in only at 250 Watts. That's less than half of the starting point from last gen.
EDIT: I also find it suspect. See. For PS3 downloads could only happen when the PS3 was on, not while it was in any kind of standby mode. The PS4, however, if it's performing background downloads while in standby it can draw up to 70 watts. The thing is, this has to be much better than when my PS3 stayed on for a whole day downloading GoW Ascension alone……
Last edited by Temjin001 on 5/19/2014 9:36:28 AM
How do you get downloads to work in standby? I know it is supposed to be able to continue downloads but every time I have tried to put the system in standby so my download can continue I wake it up the next day and it always says my download screwed up and I have delete all of the file I was downloading and start again from scratch. =S
I don't know what's causing your problem. I keep having problems with my save files backing up to the Cloud from my PS4. I keep having to do it manually.
Anyway, I think by default the PS4 will just download updates while in standby mode. I'm not sure if it's a user-setting. I can't remember if this was something I had to enable when i first setup my PS4.
This report really bothers me. I somewhat feel this may be an organization that's designed to lobby politicians for their purposes.
It assumes too much. It assumes everyone is using standby mode and/or downloading while it's in this mode (that's how it gets up to 70 watts), and everyone is streaming HD video. It also assumes everyone is usb charging their controllers from the PS4. It smells really fishy because it creates a whole ton of assumptions to try and force a point.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 5/19/2014 10:55:51 PM
I almost always shut my PS4 completely off. Only time I leave it in standby is if my controller is on the brink of death and I know I am going to play soon after waking up tomorrow.
I wish the PS4 was like the PS3 in way of being able to set a time for it turn itself on and update as World stated "it's never wise to just leave a console on no matter what.". It seems Sony WANTS us to always leave our PS4s in standby but if you actually read the manual it specifically states that should the PS4 be turned off or should you suddenly lose power while the system is in standby mode serious damage can occur.
I don't know about you guys but I live in an area where we lose power many times throughout the year due to wind and snow/hail plus you never know when some random idiot is going to run into a telephone pole.
lol yeah there's a lot of drunk driving around here! I like to use a surge protector but I don't trust that 100% either.
While we should always be power conscious, the article (original one being referenced) makes no comparison with last-gen's consoles, their standby power usage or running usage. In short, it's incredibly one sided and only good for grandstanding, rather than any objective analysis of comparative power costs between generations. Given the overall power draw of the new consoles is a good deal lower than at the start of the last gen, some analysis of their relative standby draws would have actually been useful, if the NRDC had been interested in anything more than politicising things.
they're tree huggers with an agenda
I can't confirm, but I don't believe my SNES ever went on standby.
I see now that the source report referenced here is more comprehensive than the one I referenced from another site reporting the same story. That one must've been an abstract of sorts.
This more thorough one does address some of my criticisms above but I still find the intent and the resolve to be off.
I can't help but think it's these sort of organizations that make using public bathrooms annoying as heck. I can't tell you how many times I go to wash my hands and the dang sink sensor is busted. or etc. etc. All because some environmentalist is throwing a fit about unnecessary waste.
So basically, the end to all of this hoot and nanny is greater regulations and possibly greater taxation, and a process of taking away more and more control from the end-user.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 5/20/2014 7:12:41 PM