Microsoft is making improvements to its power saving mode on Xbox consoles. While Xbox owners have traditionally had to enable standby mode to continue receiving game and system updates while the consoles are off, power saving mode will now support downloading updates in the background.
“Now, system and game updates can be downloaded during Power Saver mode, saving even more power.” explains Dave McCarthy, corporate vice president of Xbox operations. “Power save mode consumes about 20 times less power than standby mode when the console is not in use or receiving updates.”
Microsoft has now made power saving mode the default option when Xbox owners initially set up a console. Power saving mode means it’s slower to resume your Xbox, especially on older Xbox One consoles. The latest Xbox Series S/X consoles boot up so quickly that it’s definitely worth enabling Energy Saver to offset power usage, especially in conjunction with game and supported system updates running in the background.
Elsewhere, Microsoft has also switched to using post-consumer recycled (PCR) resins in its Xbox Series S consoles. “At a minimum, 28% of the mechanical component plastic by weight in the updated Series S console is post-consumer recycled (PCR) resin. ),” says McCarthy.
Microsoft has also built an “enhanced power monitoring system” into a small number of consoles for anonymous telemetry collection. “This is key because accurate telemetry per unit helps us identify the best opportunities for future improvements that will help us save energy,” explains McCarthy. Microsoft is also looking to improve Xbox Cloud Gaming. Since it’s powered by Azure, Microsoft will switch to a 100 percent renewable energy supply by 2025.
All of these sustainability efforts are part of Microsoft’s broader promise to go carbon. negative by 2030. A lot of this involves Microsoft data centers, and the company has also been accelerating its plans to make its data centers less thirsty by server cooling without using water.
Microsoft’s overall goals will be challenging to achieveand the software maker admitted today that some of its emissions have increased year after year. “Our experience from the past year has given us critical and additional early learning on our way to our 2030 carbon negative milestone, and we are applying this learning quickly with additional steps to strengthen efforts to reduce our Scope 3 emissions,” he says. Microsoft Chairman Brad. Blacksmith.