Now you're playing with (a device which consumes very little) power!

by Chris Greenhough { Jun 4th 2008 at 8:45AM }

It's hardly news that the Wii uses up less power than Sony and Microsoft's graphically intensive, monolithic consoles, but Aussie consumer website Choice has now delivered the most detailed results yet on how much juice each machine consumes -- even taking into account factors such as whether or not WiiConnect24 is active, or whether the console in question is idle.

And there's no doubt about it -- despite what Greenpeace might say, the Wii is an efficient little bugger when it comes to energy consumption. Ninty's console uses under one-tenth of the power required to play games on a PS3, and an eighth of the energy needed to run games on an Xbox 360. Regrettably, the survey neglects to mention that the Wii is three times as fun as both. YES, WE TOTALLY WENT THERE.

[Via Go Nintendo]

Tags: energy, power, ps3, xbox-360, xbox360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rowdehaj @ Jun 4th 2008 8:58AM

I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE.

Anyway, it's funny how the PS3 uses more power, but is much, much quieter than the Xbox 360. Yay for the Wii's low power consumption though, I didn't expect the difference to be that big!

Are there any figures available for the previous generations too? I'd be interested to know how it measures up to the Gamecube, or PS2?

Rocketboy @ Jun 4th 2008 9:01AM

I'm sure that this will get the same world-wide coverage that the greenpeace smear recieved...

no?

Nigeria @ Jun 4th 2008 9:21AM

I should probably turn off Wii Connect, but I love that blue glow. It never gets old.

El Capitaine @ Jun 4th 2008 10:03AM

"Regrettably, the survey neglects to mention that the Wii is three times as fun as both."

As an owner of both a 360 and a Wii (and I do enjoy them both, I'm not biased towards one or the other)... I do have to say that as of yet, I've only been able to play one (1) total games of SSBB online without unbearable lag. But that 1 game still lagged a lot. (this is on a 6mbps down/768kbps up connection. and no I wasn't downloading anything)

The Wii is an amazing and innovative system, and, especially considering its sales, it certainly doesn't NEED online. However, Nintendo definitely could do much better in this regard.

hvnlysoldr @ Jun 4th 2008 10:54AM

Oh ho so the difference between WiiConnect24 Standby and the complete shut down of the competitors are way smaller than other studies led me to believe. On a 4th grade field trip to a science center/technical school, we were separated into groups and had an experiment with erosion. Somehow miraculously/tragically we had a whopping 112g compared to the normal 10-30g range of erosion in our models. My teammates lowered it to 5g using bales of hay without too much obstruction of "migration" paths. Another group had the lowest amount of erosion with 2g but started at 12g. Although feeling queasy and not helping, I still say we did a much better job. No I don't know what that has to do with energy consumption.