This feature written by Jacob Stutsman
Some of the latent images imported from China daily showcase people’s unwavering ability to rally around the evocative, and, incidentally, prove unendingly that the evocative is what it takes to stoke the emotional boiler. From these ashes is the revelation that people aren’t moved by what is preachy and complex, and so worldwide environmental concerns contend as passable poltergeists, containing no tangible element, no inward properties, and nothing that will inspire people into immediate action. We make demands out of our environment, certain that the abstract cannot come back to haunt us. Gaming, most of all, is a hobby where technological progress isn’t just a necessity but a way of life, and I think in some cases this is rightly so.
Here’s a film analogy with which you should relate: technology might be important to a film, but things like a good script and a well rounded cast of actors exist independent of that technology. A movie filmed on any street corner can be just as gratifying as a big budget space opera. But a game must employ a crew of programmers in its service just to model that same street corner, and it takes a greater technology plateau in order to bring that street to life in a way that we as gamers would find acceptable. Better tools do not lead to better products, but more than any other medium better tools ensure a product that is much closer to the developer’s original vision. So technology isn’t just the metaphorical hot rod on display, it’s the holy grail of progress.
A watt measures power, which is the rate at which energy is used. A watt-hour is the amount of energy used over a period of time. If a 100 watt light bulb is turned on for one hour, then the energy used is 100 watt-hours. If it's turned on for two hours, then it would use 200 watt-hours.
Wii: 20-30 Watts
Xbox 360 = 160-170 watts
PlayStation 3 = Around 200 watts
This is a harmonious vision that gamers can agree upon. Unfortunately, due to the necessity of the technology that enables games to exist as they do today, the power that fuels our hobby must also be sacrificial. So what price does the environment pay for games with the visual verbosity of something like Gears of War 2? Exploring the sum total of knowledge in this regard, perhaps it’s not much. The 360’s vast reservoir of profound hunger, once overstated, became erosive arguments in console wars, forming lakes where there once was only message board voyeurism. But its 160-170 watts might only run you between $10 and $35 a year. Sony’s Playstation 3 runs at a rate of around 200 watts (reports pegged it at a maximum of 380, but that was a hypothetical bearing, and its arc has probably fallen with the introduction of newer models).
These figures more than double the previous generation of consoles; for instance, the later models of the Playstation 2 used a maximum of 45 watts, and with the Xbox you probably weren’t likely to use more than 70-80 watts in any given session. The Wii is closer to that generational norm, consuming barely 20 watts by itself and 10 watts when WiiConnect24 is enabled and the system is off (which is more than the other consoles when they are on standby). These figures seems like a feeble exchange for their use when you compare them to everyday products such as an electric oven (5000 watts), a toaster (1500 watts), a refrigerator (around 500 watts when the compressor is running), and a computer (upward of 200 watts depending wildly on the make and model). (See "CRASH COURSE: Electricity and Wattage" above)
The surprise comes when we examine the kind of power that it takes to keep information in stasis. Virtual communities and MMOs represent massive humming engines that never sleep. Julian Bleecker of Near Future Laboratory calculated that the average Second Life avatar eats up 1,248 kilowatt hours of electricity per year (1,095 kWh on your PC, 153 kWh server side). When Bleecker calculated the appropriate carbon dioxide emissions that 1,248 kWh of electricity would give off, it came out to 1,685 pounds per avatar per year, or the equivalent of driving 1,800 miles in a BMW 750Li, according to Wired Magazine.
Here’s a film analogy with which you should relate: technology might be important to a film, but things like a good script and a well rounded cast of actors exist independent of that technology. A movie filmed on any street corner can be just as gratifying as a big budget space opera. But a game must employ a crew of programmers in its service just to model that same street corner, and it takes a greater technology plateau in order to bring that street to life in a way that we as gamers would find acceptable. Better tools do not lead to better products, but more than any other medium better tools ensure a product that is much closer to the developer’s original vision. So technology isn’t just the metaphorical hot rod on display, it’s the holy grail of progress.
CRASH COURSE: Electricity & Wattage
A watt measures power, which is the rate at which energy is used. A watt-hour is the amount of energy used over a period of time. If a 100 watt light bulb is turned on for one hour, then the energy used is 100 watt-hours. If it's turned on for two hours, then it would use 200 watt-hours.Wii: 20-30 Watts
Xbox 360 = 160-170 watts
PlayStation 3 = Around 200 watts
This is a harmonious vision that gamers can agree upon. Unfortunately, due to the necessity of the technology that enables games to exist as they do today, the power that fuels our hobby must also be sacrificial. So what price does the environment pay for games with the visual verbosity of something like Gears of War 2? Exploring the sum total of knowledge in this regard, perhaps it’s not much. The 360’s vast reservoir of profound hunger, once overstated, became erosive arguments in console wars, forming lakes where there once was only message board voyeurism. But its 160-170 watts might only run you between $10 and $35 a year. Sony’s Playstation 3 runs at a rate of around 200 watts (reports pegged it at a maximum of 380, but that was a hypothetical bearing, and its arc has probably fallen with the introduction of newer models).
These figures more than double the previous generation of consoles; for instance, the later models of the Playstation 2 used a maximum of 45 watts, and with the Xbox you probably weren’t likely to use more than 70-80 watts in any given session. The Wii is closer to that generational norm, consuming barely 20 watts by itself and 10 watts when WiiConnect24 is enabled and the system is off (which is more than the other consoles when they are on standby). These figures seems like a feeble exchange for their use when you compare them to everyday products such as an electric oven (5000 watts), a toaster (1500 watts), a refrigerator (around 500 watts when the compressor is running), and a computer (upward of 200 watts depending wildly on the make and model). (See "CRASH COURSE: Electricity and Wattage" above)
The surprise comes when we examine the kind of power that it takes to keep information in stasis. Virtual communities and MMOs represent massive humming engines that never sleep. Julian Bleecker of Near Future Laboratory calculated that the average Second Life avatar eats up 1,248 kilowatt hours of electricity per year (1,095 kWh on your PC, 153 kWh server side). When Bleecker calculated the appropriate carbon dioxide emissions that 1,248 kWh of electricity would give off, it came out to 1,685 pounds per avatar per year, or the equivalent of driving 1,800 miles in a BMW 750Li, according to Wired Magazine.
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