The PS3 eats watts: some power usage figures

While not every QJ reader pays the bills in their home, we all know that “power” is a word firmly entrenched in gaming vocabulary. Today, we won’t be talking about the graphical powers of the PS3, but another power. It’s the power that Sony‘s console eats up, and it seems to be a hefty chunk larger than the the other consoles in the market.

According to the Digital Displacement blog, it’s a power-hungry piece of machinery. When kept on standby in the XMB, the PS3 used up 185 to 205 watts compared to the Xbox 360’s 145 watt usage or the Wii’s 15-20 watt usage when kept on their dashboard or home menu. Watt usage during gameplay varied with the game, but their healthy estimate lay anywhere from 185 to 205 watts. Lastly, playing a Blu-Ray DVD also ate up 205 watts.

What does this have to do with gaming, you might ask? In addition to our concerns about how much more your electricity bill will be each month, and how a large base of gaming consoles (and other forms of tech) will increase the need for power stations to supply adequate electricity, Digital Displacement poses a rather poignant question:

Certainly the graphics power of the next-gen consoles is awesome to behold, but when we look back to the humble Playstation and its minuscule 6 watts of power consumption during gaming, you have to wonder: are we seeing comparable increases in graphics performance to match up with 35-fold increase in power consumption? And, perhaps more importantly, are games 35 times more fun to play?

We’d actually kind of settle for at least 10 times more fun, but that doesn’t really sound possible these days, does it?

While not every QJ reader pays the bills in their home, we all know that “power” is a word firmly entrenched in gaming vocabulary. Today, we won’t be talking about the graphical powers of the PS3, but another power. It’s the power that Sony‘s console eats up, and it seems to be a hefty chunk larger than the the other consoles in the market.

According to the Digital Displacement blog, it’s a power-hungry piece of machinery. When kept on standby in the XMB, the PS3 used up 185 to 205 watts compared to the Xbox 360’s 145 watt usage or the Wii’s 15-20 watt usage when kept on their dashboard or home menu. Watt usage during gameplay varied with the game, but their healthy estimate lay anywhere from 185 to 205 watts. Lastly, playing a Blu-Ray DVD also ate up 205 watts.

What does this have to do with gaming, you might ask? In addition to our concerns about how much more your electricity bill will be each month, and how a large base of gaming consoles (and other forms of tech) will increase the need for power stations to supply adequate electricity, Digital Displacement poses a rather poignant question:

Certainly the graphics power of the next-gen consoles is awesome to behold, but when we look back to the humble Playstation and its minuscule 6 watts of power consumption during gaming, you have to wonder: are we seeing comparable increases in graphics performance to match up with 35-fold increase in power consumption? And, perhaps more importantly, are games 35 times more fun to play?

We’d actually kind of settle for at least 10 times more fun, but that doesn’t really sound possible these days, does it?