Most Game Console Power Draw Comes From Time Spent Idling 249
hypnosec writes "Springer Science and Business Media has discovered that during 2010, almost 70 per cent of the overall power draw of the world's consoles was thanks to idling. This total came to over 10.8 TWh of energy, equating to well over a billion dollars in wasted power. The biggest culprit for the trio of main consoles of this generation was the PlayStation 3, with its first edition having an active power draw of 180 watts and an idling draw of 167. As the report states, the Xbox 360 wasn't much better however, with active/idle draws of 172/162w respectively. Both of those consoles have got far better with their hardware revisions, more than halving the idle power consumption, but the Wii has been ahead of the curve the whole time. Its active/idle power draws were as low as 16/11w. The only real difference with the Nintendo console was whether its WC24 was enabled or not. With it on, standby power jumped from 2w to 9w."
What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly is the purpose of gaming consoles today? These days, they're merely locked-down PCs that are several years out of date, and damn near impossible to upgrade. It's not the games, since many of them target every major console and non-console platform these days. It's not the graphics quality, since PCs offer much better quality imagery. It's not the controllers, because there is a much wider range of options for PCs. It's not their networking abilities, given that consoles were many years behind PCs in this respect.
While consoles make sense for the businesses who want to lock-in users, they make absolutely no sense for consumers. PCs are a much better option in every way possible.
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except for playing multiplayer games from the comfort of your couch.
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That's what emulators and USB gamepads are for!
Emulators of what platforms? (Score:2)
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The 7 commandments all video games should obey (Score:2)
You can drive a projector from a PC.
Despite that this is the case, most people don't know that this is the case. Home theater PCs are still a geek thing.
there's no technical reason not to support properly implement them in games.
But plenty of business reasons, as David Wong of Cracked points out [cracked.com]. For one thing, the publisher gets to sell two to four copies to a single household if the game's multiplayer is LAN- or online-only. In addition, the genres traditionally popular on PCs (FPS and RTS) rely on hiding information from your opponents, and before Xbox Live existed, FPS gamers went to LAN and online play on PCs pr
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:5, Informative)
A locked-down hardware and (for the most part) software specification that developers can optimize too. Consoles are older hardware that is much better utilized.
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But this optimization is no longer done. People kind of program for the xbox and keep in mind about porting to the PS3, and some times the Wii. Some even consider the PSP! Meaning your game is the lowest denominator.
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Recent Intel graphics runs Skyrim (Score:2)
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You've never worked in gaming, have you?
No, because one has to move first in order to get hired by a console game studio, and I have obligations to my family that prevent that from happening any time soon.
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It's also worth noting that consoles are a LOT easier to use, despite all the iGUI innovations in recent years.
Hold On... (Score:3)
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Exception to the rule. If it works on one Xbox it almost certainly works on another Xbox. Everybody has the almost the same hardware and exactly the same drivers etc. Almost never have incompatibility or glitches. My PC Games crash far more often.
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Wish I had mod points... the whole "PCs are hard to maintain / games don't work" thing is just nonsense. I've got a mid-range machine that's about 2 and half years old. No upgrades so far, no problems with recent games (e.g. Skyrim) running on it.
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:5, Interesting)
many of them target every major console and non-console platform these days.
Many AAA games come out on consoles first. They may or may not come out later on PC and when they do the PC versions that seem like an afterthought (poorly optimised, poor controller configuration options etc). Of course at the time of the console release there is usually no indication as to whether or not a PC version will come out later.
What exactly is the purpose of gaming consoles today?
When a game developer targets a console they will generally design their game to run well on that console. So if I buy a console early in it's generation I can be reasonablly confident that new games (with a few exceptions from shitty developers) will continue to run well on that console through it's lifecycle. Reviewers will be using the same hardware specs as players will so if a game plays well on the reviewers system it will play well for users too.
With PC gaming it's far more of a crapshoot, yes the graphics etc can be better than consoles but if your hardware specs aren't high enough the experience can be a lot worse. Furthermore neither CPU or GPU vendors label their products in a way that makes it easy for the customer to determine whether his CPU/GPU is better or worse than the one a reviewer used.
Oh and most PC games now have some form of online activation which often includes anti-resale measures (at the very least you don't know if the previous owner has posted the key somewhere online that could result in it being blacklisted). Console games can for the most part still be resold (some console games are starting to make DLC and/or online multiplayer access free for the original owner and chargable for subsequent owners but i've not yet seen a console game where the main single player game can't be resold).
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With PC gaming it's far more of a crapshoot, yes the graphics etc can be better than consoles but if your hardware specs aren't high enough the experience can be a lot worse. Furthermore neither CPU or GPU vendors label their products in a way that makes it easy for the customer to determine whether his CPU/GPU is better or worse than the one a reviewer used.
If you seriously have a problem figuring this one out, you need to not be using PCs anymore. Go get yourself a Mac.
*braces for -1 Flamebait*
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:5, Informative)
The last Resident Evil game on the DS even had no ability to delete a saved game, effectively making the game one play per sale.
Second to last, actually. This is an important distinction because the game you are talking about, Resident Evil Mercenaries, is an arcade-style action game, where the only actual progress to be deleted is earning high scores and unlocking additional levels and characters. The most recent Resident Evil game for the 3DS, Resident Evil Revelations, is a story-based experience and does offer the option to delete save files.
The first-sale codes are a little more controversial in the gaming blagosphere. No publisher has denied a single-player experience to players who do not use the included code, but multiplayer and downloadable content is often tied to it. For some games, this is not a big deal, but for others, multiplayer is a major component of the game. However, the codes are not "darn close" to the MSRP; the MSRP of new games is typically $60, with used games going for $40-$55. The codes sell for $10-$20, with the goal of making the price used (with all multiplayer and DLC in tact) the same as the price of a new game, thus encouraging gamers to purchase a new game.
There is an interesting debate concerning whether what EA is doing is ethical or not. On one hand, we have the First Sale Doctrine, which guarantees the reselling of used products and might(?) be violated by EA's first-sale codes. However, the First Sale Doctrine was created with things like houses and automobiles in mind--things that naturally tend to lose value over time, due to wear and tear, or things that maintain value only if money is spent on repairs and renovations. Thus the decrease in value is tied to its use.
Software, on the other hand, does not depreciate in value in the same way. While the physical media--box, manual, and disc--are vulnerable to wear and tear, the bulk of a game's value comes from the game itself, which comprises of the software on the disc. In general, the game either works or it doesn't; a game will hold full value as a game until the disc breaks, at which point it will hold virtually no value.
What this leads to is a used market dependent entirely on the game's popularity. Games that are less popular suffer a multiplied loss: less copies will be sold new, and, because the price difference between used and new is so great, a higher percentage of copies will be sold used, further hurting its sales. The invisible hand certainly has something to say about the justice of unpopular games causing losses, but in an industry as young as gaming, any factors that increase the risk associated with developing a game (typically over 2-5 years, costing hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars) can be seen as negatively impacting the development of games as an art form. (Recently, independent games made on small budgets in far less time, have become prolific; they often represent the riskiest, most innovative, and in some cases, most artistic expressions in gaming.)
Is it fair for games to be subject to a popularity multiplier? Maybe. However, the gaming industry is a different framework than what the first-sale doctrine was established for. I realize I have been playing the devil's advocate throughout most of this comment, but I believe the issue needs to be explored with hard economics before we can draw strong opinions on whether it is right or not for publishers to discourage the sale of used games. It is possible that the used games industry puts games into the hands of far more people, improving its legitimacy as an art form, but it is also possible that used games are a primary factor pushing publishers towards sticking to established franchises and neglecting innovation in favor of reliable sales.
Less upgrading (Score:2)
there is no "you need more ram", but only a "needs at least a ps2". so you do not need to upgrade too often.
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and no problem with an operation system and other software which gets worse and worse over time. A fixed system, that just works ...
okay, its not quite true for the latest consoles, but the situation is still much worse on the PC.
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First off, they are cheaper* than an equivalent PC. It's only $200 for a 360 and $300 for a PS3, and they come with a naturally more comfortable** input device. It's easier for most people to hook up a console to a large TV and sit in a comfortable couch. Games require less fiddling and you don't really need to interact with the system OS if you don't want to--and even if you do, it's basically impossible to screw things up. There are also many console games that never make it to PCs--or, if they do, th
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they're merely locked-down PCs
You answered your own question. Locked down means less piracy, no choice but to use the official online service and buy games through it, no mods or hacks etc. Almost every company wants to lock you into their revenue stream to bleed you dry, and a locked-down platform is the best way to do that.
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Looking at your points closely, only numbers 1, 4, and 5 are actually the only relevant ones in a sense, "this is why a console is better for me".
Point #2 - No one said you had to have a PC in your living room.
Point #3 - A Mac is a PC, arbitrarily defining a Mac as not a PC doesn't count.
Point #6 - I'm not even sure what point you were trying to make.
Point #7 - See above.
Point #8 - Who cares?
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All the points were saying why a console is better for me. 2, 3 and 6 are saying I don't want a desktop computer (either Mac or PC), with keyboard, mouse etc., in my living room.
Point 3 was a little facetious or snobbish, depending on your viewpoint. Either way, there aren't any of the accoutrements of a desktop computer in my living room and this is important to us.
Point 7 reflects my perception of the PC games market as being dominated by FPSes. Maybe that's misguided.
Point 8 further reflects the argument
Indie (Score:2)
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I played Braid on my Mac, but I believe it was available to download for the Xbox first. I've downloaded some third-party stuff on my 3DS (via the eshop, rather than homebrew) which may not have come from the cities mentioned. But as you can see from my list of favourite games, I'm not exactly a cutting-edge game fan :)
Monitor big enough for multiple people (Score:2)
No one said you had to have a PC in your living room.
In order to have console-style multiplayer games, you need a monitor big enough for two to four people to fit around. I'm told the only kind of monitor like that is a living room HDTV.
A Mac is a PC
Even under your definition, far fewer PC games are exclusive to Mac OS X than are exclusive to Windows.
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In order to have console-style multiplayer games, you need a monitor big enough for two to four people to fit around. I'm told the only kind of monitor like that is a living room HDTV.
Meh. Sure, the HDTV provides a better experience, but I've quite happily had 3 people playing games on a 17" monitor before now, and as larger monitors (e.g. 21.5" widescreen) are becoming mainstream now, this really isn't that big an issue.
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Possibly a little snobbish:), but then again there's not been a piece of Windows software that I've needed in the last few years except the management consoles for our trading platform (Orc) and Excel/Visual Studio to write custom code for our traders to query Bloomberg in innovative ways.
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:5, Informative)
How much would you have to spend today on a PC that's equivalent to, say, an XBox 360? How much does the XBox cost?
There's probably more to it than cost, but last time I checked PCs weren't sold as loss-leaders.
That's an interesting question, bcause the XBox's processor is not directly equivalent to a PC processor. Because it's an in-order execution system, it doesn't really compare well to PC processors jusrt by looking at its specs. It may be a 3-core 2-instruction capable processor, but in reality most code likely only fills one of the instruction slots at a time (similarly to the original Pentium). Whereas modern PC processors tend to be able to handle 2 or even 3 instructions per cycle a lot of the time. So it may be best to think of it as being similar to a modern CPU with about half the clock speed. Although there are still significant differences. A quick review of old documents on it suggests a 21-stage pipeline, which is longer than current-generation PC processors, and means mispredicted branches are going to be slower comparitivlely. It also has a much smaller cache than modern PC processors, and it's 21.6GB/s memory bandwidth is comparable to the very low end of current desktop processors. All-in-all, thererfore, I'd expect any modern dual-core budget processor (e.g. a Celeron G530) to outperrform it in most tasks.
The onboard graphics on a Celeron G530 processor is considered comparable in capability to ATI cards from 3 generations later than the ones that are most similar architecturally to the XBox 360's graphics chip, so this basic PC should substantially outperform the XBox 360 in graphics performance.
So, processor: £36.24 (dabs.com). Add to that processor a budget microATX motherboard (£34.99), 2GB RAM (4 times as much as is in the XBox 360, but the smallest amount available these days) (£11.97), case & PSU (£19.99), hard disk (£34.99) and optical drive (£11.99), and the total is *very* similar to the cost of an Xbox 360 (about £1 more expensive than the cheapest deal I see for a new 360 on google shopping). For a machine that outclasses the 360 in most respects (perhaps even all respects... it is very hard to compare the CPU performance).
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Except that it won't be able to run the same games (Call of Duty: Black ops comes to mind).
Consoles have a big advantage over PCs because they all have identical hardware. Meaning the game you buy for an Xbox or PS3 *will* run on any of them.
(very much like most computers in the '80s. *any* C64 could run *any* title designed for a C64, because they were all identical.)
On a modern PC you have to make sure you have enough RAM, you have to make sure your CPU meets the minimum or recommended requirements, same
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:4, Interesting)
My machine has enough RAM and GPU to run Black Ops, but the CPU is too slow, gotta upgrade the CPU if I want to play it. Wouldn't have to do that with a console.
Yes you would - the requirements are just more coarse-grained. You'd have to upgrade your PS2 to a PS3, or X-Box to X-Box360. And really, if you buy middle-tier graphics cards/CPUs when you build a computer, you're likely to get almost a console generation worth of time out of them before really being compelled to upgrade (if you're willing to accept lower graphics settings on recent games, which are still likely to be better than a console).
Re:What is the point of gaming consoles? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question should be rephrased:
How much more do you have to spend on your computer for it to match the power of an XBox 360?
Because today, you already need a computer.
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Updates on PC's are done automatically too.
As far "headaches" that are comparable to what you deal with on a PC, I picked a recent AAA [escapistmagazine.com] title and this is the first result I got in a search. The point is, even some people have headaches with consoles. And really, similar issues tend to happen with games on consoles, where they don't work, or you need to download the patch on launch day to play the game.
Consoles are only marginally better these days for a few things. Their ease of use is dwindling. The "it alw
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Right now, no, but the signs are there that it's starting. This was bound to happen sooner or later due to increased complexity in games and what the OS on the hardware wants to do. While I suspect the consoles may hold some advantages over PC indefinitely, the number of advantages is shrinking and will continue to do so with the way things are going.
As far as headaches with a PC go, I just very rarely ever have them unless it's a hardware issue, which consoles suffer from too. I typically don't need to man
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How do you read a Wii disc in a PC? (Score:2)
PS3 controller charging (Score:5, Insightful)
What truly shocked me about the PS3 was to find that attached controllers do not appear to charge unless the console is powered on.
This is an absurd state of affairs and has, apparently, persisted through hardware revisions. The device itself can power on overnight from standby and sync with the PS network/download patches etc, but you need to wake the thing to charge the controller. This encourages the device being left on 24x7 with all the expense and environmental consequences that go along with that.
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What truly shocked me about the PS3 was to find that attached controllers do not appear to charge unless the console is powered on.
That shocked you? Were you shocked when your I-Pod didn't charge when it was plugged into a powered off PC? Are you shocked when your car battery drains when the engine is off?
There's a reason why they sell charging stations for Wii-motes and PS3 controllers. And why they sell wall charging units for mp3 players and tablet PCs. And why you can purchase a battery maintenance devi
Re:PS3 controller charging (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure about an i-Pod, but my phone can charge when plugged into a powered off PC's USB, because the USB keeps giving power as long as the power supply is in the net.
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There's a reason why they sell charging stations for Wii-motes and PS3 controllers.
Yes, and the reasons is "more profit".
Why can't a console be made to work like one of those, to you apparently magical, charging stations?
Re:PS3 controller charging (Score:5, Insightful)
I think one of the real culprits here is code, OS, and library bloat that causes boot times on consumer devices to be in the seconds or 10's of seconds from a cold start. Even my TV takes about 5-10 seconds after I hit power before I can actually watch anything. The lazy way to mitigate this is to not ever really power down, but just appear to. There really is no excuse to take this long to boot into what should be a minimal OS from flash memory. This laziness costs consumers cold hard cash, albeit over months and years.
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Even my TV takes about 5-10 seconds after I hit power before I can actually watch anything.
As LCD TVs no longer have the warm-up time needed for CRTs, additional delay had to be implemented somehow to make the TV turn on in the same time as a CRT. This allows for a future "instant-on" TV because there are not many improvements left to do to make someone replace their good TV with a new one.
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I've often left my PS3 on overnight to charge the controllers, and then forgot to turn it off for several more days afterward.
Please enable automatic sleep mode.
Set it to a few hours, something.
Let your console power off automatically if not used for a extended period of time, instead of doing exactly what you just described.
Enormous waste of electricity.
Also, it's just USB.
Use any phone charger (most phones has USB outlets these days).
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Check to see if your TV has an instant-on feature. A lot of them already implement exactly what you described. For an extra, perpetual draw on power, you can have your TV turn on essentially instantly. I thought it was great when I was living in a house with a few guys where I didn't pay a share of the utilities, but it's not worth it to me when I'm the one footing the bill.
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Were you shocked when your I-Pod didn't charge when it was plugged into a powered off PC?
No because USB ports on PCs were not intended for charging.
Are you shocked when your car battery drains when the engine is off?
No because there are good technical reasons for that. Further the car is designed for the battery to be charged while driving and the battery is large enough that having it run out is rare unless there is a fault with the car.
However I don't think either of these cases are relavent to the PS3. Lets consider the specific situation of the PS3.
* The PS3 already has provision for a standby mode where most of the hardware is powered off but some remains
Re:PS3 controller charging (Score:4, Informative)
As others have said, it's perfectly possible to deliver a current from the USB ports when the PS3 is asleep. Plenty of laptops can and do manage this.
Secondly, a principle purpose of the USB ports is charging - unlike those on most computers, since most computers do not come with accessories requiring charging via a USB port. Using your example, my iPod will charge if plugged into a car adapter, it will charge if plugged into a USB wall adapter and it will charge if plugged into my laptop, whether or not it's asleep.
Thirdly, even when connected to a powered USB port - such as a mains USB adapter or a powered USB hub, the accessories will not charge unless the PS3 is on. It's not just the current, these devices were actually designed to make charging unnecessarily difficult without leaving the PS3 on or paying extra for an unnecessary charging device.
Yes, design like that is shocking.
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Were you shocked when your I-Pod didn't charge when it was plugged into a powered off PC?
Yes. There is no technical reason why it should not, unless you hammer the wifi constantly. Playing MP3s and keeping the screen lit just doesn't use that much power, and the hardware is already optimized for low power by virtue of being related to the iPhone. Most other MP3 players charge from a normal USB, as do most phones.
Are you shocked when your car battery drains when the engine is off?
I leave my car off for four or five weeks at a time at least once a year and it suffers no ill effects. Eventually the battery will drain but I have never heard of a normal car on sale
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It shocked ME when I got a PS3, because the Xbox 360 can and does charge controllers when it's turned off.
You have to have the controller plugged in before you turn the console off, but the Xbox will remain in a low-power state to charge the controller, and THEN automatically shut off.
It also amazes me that the PS3 doesn't have a 'download quietly and then turn off when the download is finished' function. All you can do is set it to turn off after a number of hours idle - which it will do if the download is
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It also amazes me that the PS3 doesn't have a 'download quietly and then turn off when the download is finished' function.
It does.
http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/users/turnoff.html [playstation.net]
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What truly shocked me about the PS3 was to find that attached controllers do not appear to charge unless the console is powered on.
This is an absurd state of affairs and has, apparently, persisted through hardware revisions. The device itself can power on overnight from standby and sync with the PS network/download patches etc, but you need to wake the thing to charge the controller. This encourages the device being left on 24x7 with all the expense and environmental consequences that go along with that.
Agreed. So set new efficiency standards and start fining the shit out of manufacturers who can't or won't comply. It's the only way the product itself is going to change, since electrical consumption has never made it into any marketing propaganda. Clearly there's no other drive towards efficiency from that standpoint.
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I see no problem with a "waste" tax. There's already a gas guzzler tax [wikipedia.org], so why not an "electricity guzzler tax" on electronic devices as well? As the vast majority of our electricity generation (at least in the U.S.) is fossil-fuel based, in essence, devices that waste electricity are really just as bad in the long run as cars that get ridiculously low gas mileage. Probably more so, because most households only have one car per driver, but dozens of electronic devices sitting there chugging power all day
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We should ban Linux. It usually has higher power consumption than Windows and Linux users are 61.4% more likely to leave their computers on all time rather than putting them to sleep because Linux doesn't support the ACPI standard properly.
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What truly shocked me about the PS3 was to find that attached controllers do not appear to charge unless the console is powered on.
I was surprised, too, especially after I woke up the next morning after I brought it home and found it had turned itself on to download updates and then never turned itself off. We actually make it a point now to glance at the PS3 every morning before leaving to make sure it's not just sitting there in standby mode of it's volition.
They have the console set up to wake up on it's own and download patches and such, but having the controllers charge via USB while powered off was too difficult or not an import
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If there was an actual mechanical switch on the PS3 (as the PS2 had) that completely powered the unit down, absolutely. But I've got my entire home theater running through a power cleaner/conditioner UPS which obviously isn't going on to be placed on a switched outlet and wouldn't like constant power cycles probably anyway.
With the amount of money these consoles cost, there's really no good excuse as to why they can't be made to be more energy efficient, especially when they're not actively being used. Th
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If there was an actual mechanical switch on the PS3 (as the PS2 had) that completely powered the unit down, absolutely.
There is.
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It's interesting you point this out in this thread. Because if you attach a controller to your 360 to charge it, the 360 goes into a special mode to charge it. In this mode on my original 360, it took about 40W. It would leave the mode and go to true off/standby when the controller was charged.
I dunno about encouraging the device being left on 24x7. If you owned an original PS3, you'd have noticed it was so damn loud you couldn't really leave it on 24/7 unless you had a separate wing of your house to put it
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What truly shocked me about the PS3 was to find that attached controllers do not appear to charge unless the console is powered on.
You are joking right? Using the PS3 to actually charge your PS3 controller is IMHO stupid and wasteful of electricity unless you are actually playing a game and then there is the inconvenience of the USB charging cable. The best way of charging your PS3 controller is via the USB cable by plugging it into your PC or laptop (takes about an hour to fully charge) or even a USB mains charging station (some mobile phone USB chargers may not work if they do great). By doing this you can save on your electrical bil
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For someone who is quick to judge others' reading ability you seem to be having some comprehension difficulties yourself.
My very point WAS that using your PS3 is a stupid and wasteful way to charge accessories BECAUSE of Sony's inane design decision that the USB ports don't deliver a current
PVRRe:PS3 controller charging (Score:2)
Switch (Score:2)
I've always used a power board with a switch for my PC, and when the PC is off I also turn the switch off. So no motherboard or monitor LEDs working.
Is this a common thing to do or do most people just leave all this stuff on?
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At work I leave it running all week to avoid reopening everything each morning.
But at home the cost of rebooting is way smaller so I turn it off, and honestly, all these monitor, speaker, etc... lights get on my nerves, I mean, even the mouse has a light that remains on through USB when the PC is off.
BTW I know I'm talking about PC's here while the article is about consoles, I hope it's not too off topic.
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I leave my PC on 24/365.
ps '24/7/365' is silly; there aren't 365 weeks in a year!
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I leave my PC on 24/365.
ps '24/7/365' is silly; there aren't 365 weeks in a year!
But there are 365 weeks in an average PC's "lifespan"
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I thought about doing that for my stuff linked to my TV--TV itself, cable box, speakers and PS3. Mainly because of the cable box which draws 25W even in standby.
Then we got switched to "smart" power meters, which lets us track energy use during which hours, and by far the biggest electricity consumer is the 5 minute hot shower. The hot water tank is electrical, and makes up over 2/3 my normal daily usage, even with all the TV, computer and gaming.
In the end I didn't bother switching the electronics off when
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I didn't know that indeed. System updates? I thought the point of consoles was that they didn't need such stuff. But I've always gamed on PCs so...
Too bad... (Score:3, Interesting)
we can't do something like this [makeuseof.com] with our gaming consoles, when they are idle.
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The PS3 can run Folding@Home if you install the Life with Playstation app:
http://www.playstation.com/life/
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That would make them not idle, no?
My desktop computer uses about half as much power (Score:2)
Just for comparison my desktop computer is drawing 71 Watts right now, with the flatscreen monitor drawing an additional 38 Watts. The monitor eventually drops down to using about 1 Watt when it is in the sleep mode. At the moment I have my computer plugged into a Kill-A-Watt meter. I have occasionally had the monitor also plugged into a Kill-A-Watt meter.
I have an Intel i7 processor and am using Kubuntu Linux on this desktop computer. Of course, it uses more power than that I work it harder.
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When I did the above post, I had not yet noticed where it said that the consoles got better with later revisions. So, it sounds like they probably are not as much different from my desktop computer now. When, I get a chance, I will read one or both of the linked articles to see what they have to say.
A laptop or notebook computer would probably use even less than my computer. As far as I can tell, my desktop computer does not seem to be set to go into a sleep mode. Only my flatscreen monitor clearly goes int
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Don't compare a gaming console with a desktop computer.
Compare it with a gaming computer.
Even mid end graphics cards these days, consume 200w+.
Old News + EnergyStar (Score:2)
cable boxes also use a lot of power but why can't (Score:2)
cable boxes also use a lot of power but why can't the DRV spin down the HDD when it's off? It's not likey they are pushing out stuff to it 24/7 or at the very least some stuff can sit in ram.
An example of free market failure (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a classic example of free market failure. Making the consoles more efficient costs the manufacturers money. There's the cost to add power gating transistors to all the multi-core chips, use more expensive versions of the same chip binned for lower power consumption, and write the firmware to maximize power efficiency.
All this will create a benefit that the consumers cannot perceive, directly. Almost no consumers own a Kill-a-Watt, and they don't have any options because there are not many competing consoles, there are only 3, and they are not remotely equivalent to each other. (a consumer unhappy with xbox/ps3 power consumption will not get the same gaming experience on the Wii)
Not all idle power is waste (Score:5, Insightful)
I heat my house with electricity. Power from idle devices offsets the load from heating - two orders of magnitude higher than idle draws in the very cold months. My home rack puts out enough heat to keep my office comfortable all winter, and I power down in summer, as I'm out doing things. No AC here. I've looked at doing things like having a small greenhouse indoors, etc - the base heat I'm paying for is good electricity turned directly into heat.
Of course, if you have AC, then you pay double - once for the heat generation from waste, and again to remove it.
Nothing in life is that black and white.
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I heat my house with electricity.
You really should stop doing that, unless you happen to live in Iceland. In normal climates, it is trivial to get twice as much heat from a heat pump compared to the electricity it uses, and more than 3 times is not unusual. Even Greenland is starting to use heat pumps.
(Iceland happens to have an approximately infinite amount of cheap hydro power available and a lousy climate for heat pumps. That combination is exceedingly rare.)
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I live in a 110 year old house in the middle of a old city. Electric hot water, all costs considered, and much insulation later, is the cheapest way to go. Unlike most I bought an old house, paid for it, fixed it, and that's that.
FWIW I live in Canada, and Hydro is very cheap (relative to alternatives). The only alternative is diesel oil.
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oh standby power is more like 2 wats. they mean with idle a homescreen running attract mode...
Re:doesn't sound like idle. (Score:4, Informative)
Because of the low failure rates and short time periods involved, we assume that all consoles sold are in active use. F
we assume that 30 % of users leave their console idle when not in use, with the remainder putting their console into standby mode. Given the importance of this assumption, we perform a thorough sensitivity analysis, discussed at length in “Results: estimated console energy consumption”. The PS3 and Xbox 360 have both added an “auto power down” capability through firmware updates, but this feature is not enabled by default and is difficult to find in system menus. We believe that this feature is not frequently utilized by consumers, and we neglect its effects on overall power consumption.
hmmmm ....
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:incorrect much? (Score:4, Informative)
10,800,000 kWh is 10.8 GWh not 10.8 TWh. 10.8 TWh is 10,800,000,000 kWh which would be $1,360,800,000 at your rates. Also, does that rate include distribution charges or only generation charges?
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10,800,000 kWh is 10.8 GWh not 10.8 TWh. 10.8 TWh is 10,800,000,000 kWh which would be $1,360,800,000 at your rates. Also, does that rate include distribution charges or only generation charges?
That includes everything. It's the consumer's cost.
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Yes, you are very much incorrect:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10.8+TWh+times+0.126+dollar%2FkWh [wolframalpha.com]
I'd say about a thousand times.
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No they don't run cost free and yes they do bill consumers for every penny of their costs. What were you trying to ask?
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