The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of America’s most effective environmental action groups, reviewed the energy consumption of next-gen consoles.
The NRDC has stated that the new consoles will cost Americans $1 billion in utility bills per year, with nearly half of that cost being generated while consoles are in standby mode. The Xbox One is the biggest offender due to it constantly needing to generate power for the Kinect.
Nintendo came in last place yet again, but this time last is best. The Wii U only consumes 37kWh/year, which is down from the original Wii’s 40kWh/year. The PS4 reverses this trend with 181kWh/year, versus the PS3’s much smaller footprint of 64kWh/year; that’s nearly three times the amount of energy used when compared to last gen.
The Xbox 360 consumed 70kWh/year, versus the Xbox One, which can fluctuate between 210-289kWh/year depending on how the consumer’s television is setup. Microsoft’s newest console uses 3-4 times the amount of energy the last gen model used.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that these are the first models of the next-gen consoles; their hardware will be improved over time which will cause their energy consumption to shrink.
The PS3’s first model used a staggering amount of energy, over 400W, when not in standby, if you can believe that. Microsoft will soon be selling the Xbox One without a Kinect, which will help with their console’s power consumption too, so these results are bound to change.
Here’s a look at the chart displaying the console’s yearly power consumption posted by the NRDC.
