Gamertell

There’s always a lot of talk about how much game consoles cost to purchase but some information compiled by the Natural Resource Defense Council suggests you might want to consider how much they cost to run.

The NRDC is a nonprofit environmental action group with a staff of 300 policy experts. According to their numbers, a PlayStation 3 left on 24/7 costs as much to run annually as two brand new refrigerators, $124 a year. The Xbox 360 is only slightly better, blowing $103 per year. The Nintendo Wii is reportedly the most efficient at $10. This also supports a 2008 report by nonprofit Australian research company, Choice.

Just a console generation or two ago, if a game console was on for hours at a time it was because of a marathon gaming session. Even earlier, a lack of memory card and game save technology. Today’s consoles, however, play movies, music and an upcoming Xbox Live update will allow gamers to access their Twitter and Facebook accounts. More options usually means more hardware which results in more power consumption.

The NRDC estimates half of console owners leave their machines on all the time. If you are leaving your Xbox 360 on constantly, you are a braver soul than me. I’ve experienced the “Red Ring of Death” twice.

The NRDC is recommending that console manufacturers add a sleep mode that will shut the machines down after they’re idle for a specific amount of time.

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