Microsoft addresses environmental concerns over Xbox One’s energy consumption

In response to concerns over the Xbox One's power consumption, brought to light recently by U.S. environmental action group Natural Resources Defense Council, Microsoft has posted a lengthy message detailing the system's various power stages and explaining what consumers can do to save power.

While "Instant-on" has its benefits, like solving the annoying problem of system updates by downloading content while the console is not actively being used, its energy consumption has been subject of criticism.

"While we believe Instant-on provides the best experience for our fans, we also believe in providing consumer choice which is why we offered the “Energy-saving” mode," Microsoft wrote. "This lower power state consumes less energy and can save customers an average of $6 to $15 in energy costs per year in the U.S. This mode does not provide the added value of background updating."

"By providing multiple power states in Xbox One and empowering our fans with choice, we sought to balance energy efficiency and functionality. At the same time, we know many Xbox One fans are vigilant about their household’s energy consumption; after all, environmental leadership often begins at home.

"It was that same personal leadership that drove our teams in the product design phase to maximize computational power per watt and drive significant improvements in how power is used in Xbox One. Even though the Xbox One is significantly more powerful with more feature functionality than Xbox 360, at launch it used about the same amount of power. This is possible because of the scalable architecture in Xbox One where it uses only the power it needs at the moment for the task at hand," Microsoft continued.

Microsoft also pointed out how they've actually improved power consumption with the Xbox One since it's launch, similar to what they did with the Xbox 360. Currently, the Xbox One uses a third less power than at launch when in Instant-on.

"At Microsoft, sustainability is core to our business practices—we continue to work to reduce the environmental impact of our products and services, and we are committed to carbon neutrality as a company."

Looking ahead, Microsoft plans to make it even easier for environmentally-concerned consumers to save energy with the Xbox One. In the coming months, new Xbox One owners will be prompted with the choice to have their Xbox One in Instant-on or Energy-saving mode during the initial console set-up process.

Clearly the message is in response to the recent environmental report, but it's nice to see that Microsoft is at least listening.

[Xbox Wire]