The Video Game Critic

Hi, I'm gearing up for an expensive summer via my air conditioner, and I was wondering if ya'll have noticed if the newer gen systems use more electricity.  It seems like they would, and I've always thought that the loudest appliciances typically use the most power. 

Surely the loud 360 uses more watts than an old NES...

....I don't know what Watt Wattage Wot is, (say that ten times fast).. but your A/C, Fridge, Fans, TV and lights will make any videogame system like pennies to the dollar!

If you are really cheap (or poor like me) , sleep all day and play at night in the dark, and fan yourself with a newspaper.
(I never have to worry about Electric as it is included in my rent. And my bike uses NONE of that $3 a gallon gas! PHbbt! )

You would be surprised when it comes to Consoles. Granted the 360 is pretty greedy when it comes to electricity and actually needs to be unplugged completely to stop it running up a bill, but it is not necessarilly the case that older systems will use up less electricty. I think a lot of the old Sega systems could be pretty horrendous when it came to hoovering up power for example. Trouble is these things are never mentioned in the manual either. You may be able to find more detailed information online. Certainly various consumer sites will give you the information on current machines.

It is odd for me to hear people talking about summer as the trouble period though. We don't need air conditioners at all here, so summer is a easy time of year for electricity. It is winter that is the trouble with all the heating required...

I have a follow-up question,then: I am still annoyed that my PS2 slimline goes into "standby" mode when I quit, rather than turning off completely. I only use my computer like twice a day so I rarely use the "sleep" feature on it.

Does the PS2 keep sucking in a lot of power even when it's playing "red light"? Would it harm the system to unplug it
when it's not in use? As I said I don't pay for electric, heat
etc... but I AM enviornmentaly conscious and try to watch water, gas and electric usage. I'm a green machine!

BTW, I am with Iain, I live in Maine where winter HEATING bills soar through the roof; meanwhile few people even OWN A/C. There may be 10 days a year it goes over 90 degrees, if that! I live on the fifth floor, by the sea, the breeze is enough 4 me!

[QUOTE=voor]Hi, I'm gearing up for an expensive summer via my air conditioner, and I was wondering if ya'll have noticed if the newer gen systems use more electricity.  It seems like they would, and I've always thought that the loudest appliciances typically use the most power.  Surely the loud 360 uses more watts than an old NES... [/QUOTE]

Look on the information sticker on the power transformer that the appliance uses. You will be looking at the secondary or output information.

For example, my Gamecube TX outputs 12V at 3.25A

DC Power = (Volts x Amps), so the Gamcube uses 39VA (or Watts). Considerably less than a light bulb.

For comparison, the DS TX outputs 5.2V at 450mA which is 2.34VA

I'm here in Louisiana, and its not the heat so much, its the humidity!!  It's often above 90%, and you can feel the mositure in the air it's so thick.  Can't hardly breathe and pouring with sweat in 3 minutes.

Winters can be bad too (again because of the mositure in the air), but it snows here about 5 times a century.

[QUOTE=voor]I'm here in Louisiana, and its not the heat so much, its the humidity!!  It's often above 90%, and you can feel the mositure in the air it's so thick.  Can't hardly breathe and pouring with sweat in 3 minutes.

Winters can be bad too (again because of the mositure in the air), but it snows here about 5 times a century.[/QUOTE]

It's like that here in Houston too.  In fact, it's my one complaint about living here -- the super high heat in Summer along with the super high humidity.

The area I grew up in in Virginia rarely reached 90 degrees.  It was cold more often than hot, and though the colder temperatures were very humid (at least, lots of moisture in the air), the heat had relatively average humidity.

I think I prefer that kind of colder humidity to dry cold.  Dry cold in the desert is bone chilling cold, and humid cold actually leads to lots of snow (which I love).

It always cracks me up when it gets cold here in Houston.  People act like it's freezing and wonder why I am outside with t-shirts on.  I don't think they know what cold is.  And God forbid it actually snow -- just a tiny bit of snow and schools shut down, offices call and tell you not to come into work, and people on the roads slide around as if they were icy when in fact they are not.  It's quite absurd.  The last time it snowed here was when I first moved.  It wasn't even enough to frost the ground, and it certainly didn't stick on the roads, yet several cars almost swerved right into me.  I've never seen such an example of a psychosomatic disaster area in my life.

Pfft... sorry for changing the subject.

If the next Ice age occurs, us Canadians will have to come down there and save the Americans from themselves !