Video Game Energy Use

Now that you’ve got your high efficiency [LED] TV, a remote controlled power strip, and the kids have saved a few bucks from the Energy Challenge at your house, it’s time to expand your home entertainment system.

When growing up, I had Atari and Nintendo, two (maybe three) action buttons and/or a simple control stick. If you could memorize the easy AABBAABAB combinations, conquering the hardest games was a simple afternoon job.

Now there are endless button combinations, multiple key pads on a controller, and numerous complexities to gaming systems, making them more high tech than ever. But with high tech comes high energy consumption, or does it?

Our good friends at E Source have put together a comprehensive chart comparing gaming systems to each other in regards to energy consumption. The chart (click on it to enlarge) breaks down makes, models, and years produced. Notice the energy change between the same models, just manufactured different years.

Deeper into the E Source Report, they cite the Electric Power Research Institute report:

“…the EPRI study estimates average energy consumption for a typical “heavy” console user (a heavy user is assumed to spend a little under six hours per day using the game console, and is estimated to represent about 75 percent of users). The researchers calculated the average annual consumption for the 2010 models of three major consoles: 29 kilowatt-hours (kWh) for a Nintendo Wii, 178 kWh for a Sony PlayStation 3, and 184 kWh for a Microsoft Xbox 360. To put this into perspective, a typical clothes washer uses a little over 100 kWh annually…according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.”

Have fun conquering each level until you reach the top. But until you reach the top, you might want to turn off the unit after you’re done playing.