Being a part of Microsoft, Xbox has its own commitment to "meaningfully reduce" its environmental impact and become a "carbon negative, water positive and zero waste company by 2030". It's now provided a "progress update" about its carbon reduction goals.
In just three years, it's managed to contribute to its goal with interventions to "reduce energy from console usage".
"These interventions, which include greening game code and players opting into energy saver modes, have prevented over 1.2 million metric tons of CO2e, compared to usage without interventions. According to US EPA estimates, this reduction prevents emissions equivalent to more than 3 billion car miles (driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle) being released into the atmosphere."
These preventions have been achieved with the help of the Xbox Sustainability Toolkit and the Shutdown (energy saving) power option.
"These measures highlight some of the improvements we’ve made to reduce our carbon footprint, and we are continually exploring new ways to innovate, learn, and improve our sustainability efforts at Xbox."
If you want to take advantage of these energy efficiency features on your own Xbox, navigate to settings and follow these steps: "General > Power options and confirm that Shutdown (energy saving) is active".
While Xbox says it's proud of the progress it's made so far on this front, it also notes how "work towards a more sustainable future is never complete". You can get the full rundown on Xbox Wire.
[source news.xbox.com]
Comments 20
I mean yeah, a constant lack of new games people wanna play will certainly reduce energy from console usage. That's certainly a way you can spin it. At this rate I imagine they'll not only meet but surpass their goals for 2030.
I think I’d rather be coughing from smog with a pile of great games waiting to be played…
Just wait until the next gen, MS. When no one buys the nextbox, your carbon footprint will be virtually zero.
And yet, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the absolute mess of energy waste that MS's pivot to LLM-based everything elsewhere is causing.
I'm glad this gaming company is focused on saving the world from...carbon?
and nobody cares, give me more fps
I don't care in the slightest, you're there to bring us games, not pretend you're not a soulless corporation doing it all for profit.
Wow what a lovely bunch of people in the comments here.
If every company made the effort Microsoft does, we wouldn’t be living in forest fire smoke, smog, floods, and the hottest month on record month after month.
@Retron FYI CO2e means Carbon Dioxide Equivalent which is a measure to show how green something is by equating it to CO2 emissions but it may not be Carbon Dioxide itself.
Good on Microsoft for pushing this, there’s a lot of steps that can be made by big companies to reduce waste and energy consumption that have massive impacts when multiplied by tens of millions of units and users. 👏👏👏
No longer manufacturing Xboxes sure would go a long way toward that.
Good. Every company is called to incorporate social responsibility in the core of their businesses.
I hope streaming could work in the lowest energy consumption option, but I understand it is asking something not possible.
I don’t give two tugs of a dead dog’s **** about a game company doing anything but making games.
Although hilariously, I guess by selling fewer consoles than Sony or Nintendo they’re making less of an impact…
@jesse_dylan Yeah, some really clueless and selfish perspectives for sure. It does matter what a major corporation does to our environment.
I find this Microsoft PR spin hilarious. Why?
Many of you may not know this, but Microsoft is contracting out the remaining nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Yep. That Three Mile Island.
The estimated power they will be using is enough to power 800,000 homes, I believe is the statistic. But none of that power will be going to homes. Nope. It's going to power Microsoft's AI. Not joking. Can't make this stuff up.
All this spin about carbon emissions. But what about the nuclear waste the are going to be spinning up just for AI? Yep. That's all it's for. Just AI.
Skynet would be proud.
@Utena-mobile You are on the correct idea. See my above comment.
Sounds like a great way to release an underpowered console and convince people it's great cuz it's saving the planet or some other BS...
Not shipping consoles helps 😉
2 gens in a row shipping less consoles than the last, well done minimizing your carbon footprint MS.
Ouya also had a small carbon footprint.
@GuyinPA75 Christ. I thought the carbon reduction was at least a nice gesture, but that is completely insane. All that power just to have lobotimized AI fueling workworkworkworkwork.
We're circling the drain one Bing search at a time!
How about game production goals you buffons.
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