Gamers are energy pigs

And here everyone thought that gamers are nothing but a bunch of couch potatoes. Well maybe they are but those consoles they are using to play all the hottest games are chewing through a shitload of energy. Between the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 you gamers are using enough power to keep a city the size of San Diego running.

According to a just completed study done by the Natural Resources Defence council and Ecos Consulting (pdf report) approximately 16 billion kilowatt-hours is consumed by gaming consoles. The average Xbox consumes about 119 watts in active mode, the PS3 averages out to 150 watts and the Wii with its less pull on graphics rates only 16 watts in active mode.

Now the NRDC does say that by actually using the power down options that are available on all the consoles – but are disabled by default DUH! – that if combined with better power saving measures could save 11 billion kilowatt-hours per year. In real money that would come out to about $1 Billion saved annually.

So remember you gamers out there in this new green world – Power Down when you’ve finished blowing up the world.

[hat tip to EcoGeek]