Report: Nintendo's Wii sucks less power than rival systems

This should add a new wrinkle to holiday shopping: A new report concludes that the Nintendo Wii home video game system uses six times less electricity than Sony’s PlayStation 3 or Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

The Electric Power Research Institute — a nonprofit research group funded by the power industry — put the systems through their paces by playing EA Sports’ "Madden 2011" football game. Here are the results, based on an hour of play:

“EPRI found that the Nintendo Wii system used an average of 13.7 watts, the Sony PlayStation 3 used an average of 84.8 watts, and the Microsoft Xbox 360 used an average of 87.9 watts,” the group’s findings released Thursday state.

“We included only a small sample of the many gaming systems available, but it reveals that the differences in energy use can be significant,” said Mark McGranaghan, EPRI’s vice president of Power Delivery & Utilization, in a statement.  “With the holiday shopping season in full swing, now is a good time to consider this factor.”

He adds: “Obviously there are many considerations when looking at a gaming system and we’re only talking about energy use. There are also tradeoffs associated with graphics and speed that drive higher energy use and consumers will need to factor those elements in as well. The more graphically intensive systems will, by design, require more energy.”

The researchers note the current models of all three gaming systems use much less power than versions on the market several years ago.

EPRI also puts the numbers into context. The group notes that the “heaviest” game console users account for about 75 percent of all console use and average almost six hours per day.

“Based on this data for heavy use, over the course of a year a Wii system would consume 29 kilowatt hours, which is comparable to the power consumed by a linear fluorescent light, often found in office buildings. The PlayStation 3 system would consume 178 kilowatt hours of energy and the Microsoft Xbox 360 would consume 184 kilowatt hours, considerably more than the Wii, but less than a plasma television, which consumes an average of 242 kilowatt hours of energy a year,” EPRI states.