Comments on: Gamers waste $1 billion of energy? Probably not

NRDC claims that gamers are wasting $1 billion of energy by leaving their consoles on, but CNET finds the assumptions of the study a little unbelievable.

[mrcavity]

Does that account for electric heat savings in winter?

[stigmattaman]

Would be interesting to know how much juice these things take when off but plugged in.

[pillowsrsoft]

i highly doubt it, whenever im not using my ps3 i turn it off and unplug it, im sure most at least leave it off

Do you know how much heat a PS3 puts off when on? After watching one movie my room is 5 degrees warmer. I highly doubt many people keep there console on for much longer then they have to otherwise their room would turn into a sauna.

[celticbrewer]

Far far less heat than my DVR, TV, or PC that's for sure! In fact, I'd say that my PS3 runs pretty cool. You must be in a very small room as I've never noticed any difference in ambient temperature and my room is fairly small with low ceilings.

As for the article- I always turn off my consoles when I'm done with them. And I surely don't use them every day- I do have other interests, afterall.

[Ryan_R]

I can't believe they used the word "wasting" :)

I don't suppose gaming PCs use a lot more - since there is more chance that they are left on for longer periods of time, but I never leave mine on 24/7 (too noisy and lights the room up)

[slacker15]

What about treadmills? Healthy runners waste $1 bn a year running to nowhere!

[jcnieves]

The room gets warmer with my Xbox 360 for sure, but I think a PC generates more heat, but both are noisy, starting with the fans and it's hard to sleep with that, in my case when I leave the xbox on to download a game I can barely sleep.

[Rik56]

Here we go again, somebody has nothing to do, and thinks that we will all follow his assumtions blindly into oblivion. I think there are greater energy wasters out there that waste far more energy than game consoles and pc's. The sad thing about this article will be that several "green" advocates will use it to our (pc and console gamers's) detriment.