Xbox One's high standby power consumption has been criticized by energy organizations and experts

At the end of last month, many domestic and foreign media reported that the Xbox One, the PS4, and the Wii U have a comparatively high standby power consumption. The result is that the Xbox One consumes a large amount of energy.

Microsoft's core change to the Xbox One is to give this next-generation console user the possibility to choose "energy-saving mode," rather than the default "quick-start" energy setting. This energy control update will be released in the coming months. Horowitz called this a "good news," but he is still picking words from Microsoft's speech.

As the player in the above picture sees, Microsoft's use of words is actually very accurate. The quick start mode information description is quite correct, such as "faster startup time" and "get updates automatically." In contrast, players in energy-saving mode may experience "slower start-up times" and "update interruptions."

Horowitz pointed out that Microsoft's information tip does not indicate the energy consumption level in different modes. According to the NRDC test, the Xbox One consumes about 12.5 watts in fast start mode and less than 1 watt in power saving mode. Horowitz said that if the player sees specific numbers when choosing the energy model, "more people will choose energy-saving models." (After all, people are scientists in energy science. This level of understanding is understandable, and the intention is good).

"This kind of reminder to people can make people understand that when they do not use these devices, they can reduce a lot of energy waste and climate pollution," Horowitz explained.

In the short term, NRDC hopes that Microsoft will make the text description easier to understand, but they did not provide any change suggestions. NRDC also hopes that Microsoft will set the energy-saving mode as the default energy option in the future. From a long-term perspective, NRDC hopes that Microsoft will reduce the standby power consumption of the Xbox One and enable it to use 1 watt of energy for the quick start mode. Horowitz said that the NRDC also recognizes this desire and may need software and hardware changes to implement it.

According to Microsoft, the quick start mode is a feature that players have been calling for and demanding since the beginning of the Xbox 360. And Microsoft also said that the mainframe was launched in November 2013, and even if it uses a quick start, the overall power consumption is reduced by one-third. "How much energy is consumed depends on the number of monthly system updates, new app features, and factors such as games and automatic mobile purchase downloads. The quick start mode has solved countless hours of power consumption for users." Microsoft made The above excuse.

Horowitz also commented on Microsoft's justification, saying that Xbox One's updates were "not frequent." He also said that players have the freedom to postpone the download of updates. "With today's technology, it's absolutely unnecessary for a piece of equipment to sustain 12.5 watts of power consumption all day long to wait for updates when it's not known," Horowitz criticized. "If your phone or tablet is also running like this, then it's very likely that you will run out of battery power within a few hours. These smart mobile devices will be downloaded in the background while the user is using them."

"Microsoft's competitor Nintendo has a very good and effective solution, which is that the Wii U will automatically start a few seconds per hour to check for updates," Horowitz added. "If there is an update, the device will be downloaded and installed. It automatically reverts to sleep mode and consumes less than 1 watt, which compares Microsoft's current Tiger device to Nintendo's background download and update mode to more efficiently conserve energy for users."

Not only that, Horowitz also pointed out that Microsoft concealed the biggest reason why Xbox One "uses so much energy" in the fast-start mode - that is Kinect's voice recognition function. Players wake up the device by shouting "Xbox On!" to Kinenct's camera. At present, Microsoft has not made any response to this.

Horowitz pointed out in his blog post that he is optimistic about the capabilities of Microsoft's engineering team and believes that Microsoft can certainly identify problems with improving the energy consumption of Xbox One. "We are pleased with Microsoft's talented engineers who are trying to develop user-friendly and energy-saving improvements. Based on Microsoft's leadership attitude toward environmental issues and above, we are optimistic about the improvement of this issue. "He said.