PS4 Power Consumption – Should Sony go Greener?

Most people know that the Sony Playstation 3 sucks up power like crazy. Back in May, Choice (based in Australia) ran some comparisons of how much it costs to run various gadgets and consoles that are commonly seen around the home. Out of a list of 15 electrical items the PS3 was the most expensive to run. This is the scary part though… if you leave your PS3 switched on and just let it idle, it would cost you $157* per year to leave idle and while playing a game would add just another $7 or so dollars to that if you were to play 24/7/365. Folding@Home suddenly became a little more expensive then you expected!

The XBox 360 from Microsoft is not much better either as that weighs in at a hefty $120 if left idle all year. That’s a lot of wasted electricity. Now go compare that to a Nintendo Wii and you will see it costs $15 per year to leave idle. Now I know that the Wii is less powerful, but surely with today’s technology the power usage could be dropped if the processor isn’t working as hard.

If Sony are concentrating on the Playstation 4 by making it even more powerful then can we expect it to be even more expensive to run? Lets hope that they step back a little here and find ways to allow the console to only use more power if it needs it rather then sucking up almost full power even when idle.

Do you think Sony should do more?

*Prices converted from AUD to USD at today’s exchange rate. Costs of electricity may vary from AU to the US

Source – Choice