San Jose Mercury News tech columnist Dean Takahashi recently took a measure of his household’s carbon footprint, and the veteran gamer discovered the greenest gaming console by far is the Nintendo Wii. Attaching a device that measures electricity use to various gadgets around his Silicon Valley home, Takahashi found that the Wii consumed just 17 watts. Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360, on the other hand, is a veritable power hog, sucking down 194 watts, rivaling Takahashi’s 42-inch plasma TV. The Sony (SNE) PlayStation 3 wasn’t much better, guzzling 171 watts by Takahashi’s measure. Nintendo scored a huge hit with the Wii’s relatively simple graphics and family-friendly games that require players to put down the Cheetos and get off the couch. By eschewing traditional testosterone shoot-to-kill gaming that requires ever more powerful chips to render movie-quality scenes, the Wii is also doing a decent job playing the carbon game.
The Greenest Game Console
August 28, 2007 by Todd Woody
Green Wombat 
The PlayStation is a resource hog.
This is very old news. This was released on the day it was revealed at E3. According to the nintendo President, ” The Wii consumes as much power as a small light bulb”
The Wii consumes as much power as a small light bulb and is almost as fun to watch.
Actually, the Wii is the _least_ green console because it wants to consume power all of the time. Your article is complete BS.
The link in this post is subscription only, so I couldn’t read it. But there is a pretty thorough comparison on another site:
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-1.htm
Adam,
It’s true the Wii doesn’t ever really turn completely off, but that is the case for most modern electronics, and it’s true for the other consoles as well.
The only way the Wii uses more power than the other two when “off” is if you have WiiConnect24 on. That’s a simple setting in the options, and there’s really no reason to keep it on.
The Wii is by far the best console in terms of power conservation. Any assertion is absurd and dimwitted.
What about the fact that with WiiConnect, the Wii stays powered 24/7 while the PS3 and 360 are truly OFF when they are off. I’d imagine the hour of 360 play time a week I have uses less totally energy than the “on all the time” status of the Wii…
The Wii gets downright HOT just sitting there “off.”
If you don’t turn off WiiConnect24 Thats your own stupid fault.
I love it when a lower priced more accessible product pisses off the high-and mighty from their thrones. Yes the Wii uses less power, has yet to fail 30% of the time like xbox, and will be the highest selling console ever. As far as turning off, your TV, TIVO, CABLE box, fridge and just about everything else are always on to some capacity when plugged in – everyone talk a deep breath and relax – its only a video game
What about the batteries in the controller? They’re almost impossible to switch off, always run down and cost a lot of carbon to manufacture. 😦
dude 194 watts to 17?
If you played on the 360 for 2 hours i could leave mine on 24 and we’d burn around the same amount!
Anyone concerned with a “green” console will have/use rechargeables. There are better/last longer than regular batteries anyway.