Gaming Consoles cost us $1 Billion in Energy consumed per year

And you thought the list of evils associated with video games was limited to promoting violence and escapism. A report by the National Resources Defence Council insists that consoles consume $1 Billion worth of energy per year. A pretty hefty sum in times of economic recession and a global energy crisis.

In all fairness, the figure in isolation doesn't tell us much. If the council were to publish comparable figures for other appliances we could at least judge whether we were expending more resources on powering our consoles than say our refrigerators.

The XBox 360 consumes 119 Watts while active. The Playstation 3 weighs in at 150 Watts. The Wii probably consumes somewhat less given that it's a less technology intensive system.

Energy efficiency is probably not a major consideration while designing next generation consoles. It's been empirically established that video game sales are recession proof so not an area where people are willing to cut back when times are tight. But there are at least some savings to be made if consumers at least make sure they shut down their systems when not in use rather than waiting for them to slip into low power mode.