VentureBeat has shared some startling news: Researchers have found that if your XboxOne is in “Instant On” mode, it’s likely adding a decent amount of energy consumption to your already hefty electric bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council environmental group, or NRDC for short, told our friends at Microsoft that the console had a serious problem with its energy consumption. Now you might be asking, how much extra energy does it actually use? To be honest the numbers are staggering. In their recent study, NRDC confirmed that an extra 10 to 11 Billion kilowatt-hours are used from the 7 million consoles that were sold in North America. How much is that exactly? To put it into an idea, "enough to provide electricity to every home in Houston for a year."
Wait a minute, Houston? A city with a population of over 2.19 million people? That figures out roughly to be a staggering $250 million a year in extra electricity charges.
Microsoft however does know about the situation. They've implemented certain power saving features to correct the problem, but NRDC claims it's just not enough. Before the quick fixes, the "Instant On" feature used somewhere around 18 watts, now it's closer to 12.5. One of the alternative ideas to fix the problem that was brought before Microsoft, included the option to change the “Instant On” to where it completely shuts down the power of the Xbox One and disables the capability to power it on with your voice.
Hold on here, doesn't it come with that feature already? Oh yeah, my bad, only Xbox Ones purchased in Europe came with this feature. How could I have possibly forgotten.
The NRDC claims that the Xbox One isn't the only massive energy hog. The PS4 has a very similar “Standby Mode," that allows the console to download updates and run certain software in the background while not turned off. Sony has already been working with its power problem, they released an update recently that shuts off any power to its USB ports after the system’s controller is finished charging.
Microsoft however does know about the situation. They've implemented certain power saving features to correct the problem, but NRDC claims it's just not enough. Before the quick fixes, the "Instant On" feature used somewhere around 18 watts, now it's closer to 12.5. One of the alternative ideas to fix the problem that was brought before Microsoft, included the option to change the “Instant On” to where it completely shuts down the power of the Xbox One and disables the capability to power it on with your voice.
Hold on here, doesn't it come with that feature already? Oh yeah, my bad, only Xbox Ones purchased in Europe came with this feature. How could I have possibly forgotten.
The NRDC claims that the Xbox One isn't the only massive energy hog. The PS4 has a very similar “Standby Mode," that allows the console to download updates and run certain software in the background while not turned off. Sony has already been working with its power problem, they released an update recently that shuts off any power to its USB ports after the system’s controller is finished charging.
NRDC responds by saying they will be working closely with Microsoft until the problem has been resolved and the energy consumption has been reduced to "normal" levels.
-Tisnight
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