How Much is Your Console Actually Costing You?

[King Zarthius]

How Much is Your Console Actually Costing You?

An article today from the Natural Resource Defense Council discusses the cost of leaving your console online when not actively playing. According to the report, a staggering fifty percent of all gamers leave their consoles on when not in use. This can lead to some pretty extreme costs, as you can see from the chart at right. Those of you who are folding at home on your PlayStation 3 are taking the worst hit, swallowing an extra $145 worth of energy costs every year. While we are no cheapskates around here, that is a pretty massive pill to swallow when you are already having to fork out $60 dollars for a single game! Take a look at how much your console is costing you, are you surprised by what you see?
The only console that seems to be even slightly energy conscious is the Wii, but I am assuming that it is because it doesn’t harness near the horsepower of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. That said, there is a significant difference between the the low and high ends of the console spectrum.
NRDC recommends that the best way to curb these extreme cost is to simply turn off your console when it is not in use. As simple as that may sound, some insist on leaving their consoles on 24-7. For these unique individuals, they recommend that you activate all of the power saver features that each console offers in its settings. This may be a safe method to not only protect your pocketbook, but the enviroment as well.

Source

[anti spar]

all of them 0 dollars

[King Zarthius]

Originally Posted by anti spar

all of them 0 dollars

Try to read the post, instead of just getting a +1 on your post count.

[10Ruben12]

its annual so my wii is costing more than 100 pesos lol well okey $10 to me becuzz i always have the Wii Connect24 activated
OMG the PS3 its too expensive!

[PstlP]

wow only three dollars for me i am forced to turn the wii off and unplugg it when im done so its not as shocking

[Fred0708]

Only $3. Yay for me

[Kamachi]

Lol, if I had to pay I would pay $3. But since my Mom pays for it, I actually pay $0. Yay for me and my energy conserving Wii.

Score one for Nintendo.

[Gurrah]

That's quite interesting, that means for me I'm probably spending about $4-5 as I sometimes leave it on.

It's quite expensive for PS3 and 360 owners.

[Fyree the Spirit God]

yeah, my system is off most of the day..
i DO leave my WFC connected, but if I'm going to bed, I'll unplug my system, then plug it back in when I wake up..
OR when I decide to play a game/go online..

wouldnt want to have a PS3...

[gamer22]

i dont kno wat the cost is but i always turn my consoles or games off wen im finished

[M3Fox]

Well, WiiConnect24 is supposed to be like the DS's sleep feature; they both save energy in their "hibernation" states, so I expected that the Wii wouldn't use too much energy at that time.

The PS3, however, just astounded me. How could someone pay that much money AND afford all of those expensive games?? 0_0

[Darth_1978]

Sounds like a bit of over exaggerating of cost to me. I'd like to know where they got their data, what tests they performed to actually get these finding. I followed King's link and there they have no source for their data statements. Just a chart that I could make on Excel, Powerpoint and Publisher. So sorry not very convincing. Even if their data is accurate, it's only costing less than 16 bucks a month to run either 360 or PS3. That's not much, as consumers spend more in a month on movie rentals or fast food.

We have other machines in our homes that eat up the Watts. Most computers are left on, and yet the bill stays nice and low. The central air and heat eats up the bill more that anything else. I and a friend once did an experiment to see what made the meter spin more. We turned off everything in the house so it basically was at a crawl. Then turned on all lights and tv's since those are usually on all the time including the fridge (since we couldn't turn that off anyway) and it sped up just a little bit. Then turned them all off and turned on the clothes dryer, that spun the meter real good. After that we ran the Air by it self and that made the meter spin like mad. And I know I'm getting off point but I'm back on now. So the usage by any of the game systems energy wise is really nothing. They are not showing what the actual usuage per month is.

So don't go running to unplug your xbox or playstation. It's not gonna save you that much money. You wanna save, turn down the air or the heat. That will bring down the bill nicely.

So sorry, I'm not really buying the article, since it's not sourced and they don't even show where they got the "graph". No offense to King, but the original writers could do better.