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Have you ever been playing the PlayStation and wondered how much electricity it uses? Maybe you noticed once you got the PlayStation that your electricity bill increased. So you are probably wondering:
Is PlayStation hard on electricity?
Although some people may say that the PlayStation uses a ton of electricity, that is not true. Below is the usage of electricity from the different PlayStations.
- PlayStation 1: 3 Watts
- PlayStation 2: 46 Watts
- PlayStation 3: 120 Watts
- PlayStation 4: 140 Watts
- Playstation 5: 199-201 Watts
In comparison a coffee maker uses 750-1200 Watts.
If you want to know exactly how much that these number will end up costing you then you can go here and use their free calculator to see exactly what using a Playstation will cost you on a daily, weekly or yearly basis.
For an example the PS4 being used one hour a day will only cost you a little over $6 a year if your electricty costs .12 per Kilowatt Hour.
If you want to know more about the PlayStation and how much electricity it uses, you will want to keep reading. You can also watch this video to learn how to save money while using your gaming console.
If you love PlayStation you need to check out this amazing game room light decor. It looks just like the buttons on the PlayStation controller and the light reacts to the music that you are playing as well! You can check it out by clicking here.
If you have a PlayStation console you should also have one of these stands. It makes it incredibly easy to organize your console and games as well as charge your controllers at the same time.
Plus it has a cooling fan to make sure your console doesn’t overheat when you have your weekend gaming marathons!
PS4 Vs. Older PlayStation’s Electricity Use
From the looks of it, it seems like the PlayStation 4 consumes tons of Electricity as you can feel the hot air coming out its back when you use it. But we are here to give you actual facts and real data in this article.
The latest PlayStation consoles such as PS3 and PS4 use quite a bit more energy than the older consoles. The older versions did not consume that much electricity as the new ones have high-end features and faster processors.
Electricity consumption depends upon a lot of factors. It depends on the type of your device, the amount of time you use it, and the energy or level of charging the device is getting if it is chargeable or rechargeable.
Some people even avoid using the PlayStation and go for some other console because they think that the PlayStation is hard on Electricity. Well, this is not totally true because of a lot of different things such as your playing time, running time, standby time, and more..PlayStation actually made their consoles to be very energy efficient when they can be. A number of PlayStation modes have been introduced to solve this issue.
Electricity on Console Gaming
Generally, the advancer the technology, the more power it requires. The same goes for video gaming consoles as well. If you check out the electricity consumption of the retro consoles, you will notice a drastic difference in the rates. This is because the older consoles do not have the graphics, or internal memory, or the power or processing speed of the newer consoles.
The main reason behind this argument is that back in the day, the tech was not very advanced, and usually operated on moderate levels, requiring very little to no memory at all.
Today gaming consoles are very advanced. There are multiple other electrical devices such as rechargeable remote controllers, video cameras, internet connections, and high resolution displays that can add to the overall value of current and make the console draw more power.
Electricity consumption of the PlayStation
The PlayStation includes console games, handheld gaming devices, and other hardware that are used for entertainment. If we just consider the consoles here, we will notice a big difference in the electricity consumption of all of them.
Different consoles of the PlayStation consume different powers in Electricity. It cannot be simply said that they all consume the same amount of energy.
Since the older consoles have less processing speed, less memory requirements and fewer operations involved, they don’t take very much energy at all. On the other hand, today’s latest PlayStation consoles require quite a bit of technology, and use quite a bit more electricity.
The average consumption of all the consoles of PlayStation are:
- PlayStation 1: 3 Watts
- PlayStation 2: 46 Watts
- PlayStation 3: 120 Watts
- PlayStation 4: 140 Watts
Apart from this, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita also consume quite a bit of electricity according to their battery requirements.
As you can see in the data above, the energy consumption has increased as the console models increase. This is because each model has advanced in more features, and processing from every previous generation.
PlayStation 4 Electricity Usage
Different energy saving modes have been added to the PlayStation 4. If you are not playing, it directly goes into the standby, rest mode, or power-saving mode depending upon the situation. This is all to save energy to avoid using so much.
Different electricity rates have been noted in different situations to find out the exact value of the current being used. Below is the exact amount used in each situation.
- When you are on the main screen of the PlayStation 4 and just navigate around, it only uses between 70 to 80 watts.
- When you start playing a game, it directly goes around 140 watts. It does not matter what game you’re playing, it stays at the 140 watts. This is a big difference from the screen menu, and this is normally when the fan on the console comes on to keep the console from overheating.
- When you are paused on a game, to use the bathroom, the console goes back into power save mode and only uses 70-80 watts again.
- When you use Netflix or any other app on the PlayStation 4 to watch a movie or a TV series, the power level basically uses the same as the main screen and averages only 70 to 90 watts.
- PlayStation knows that how much electricity their console uses can affect users, so they are fighting this with a brand new power save mode option on the console. This cost-cutting method is built-in to the PlayStation 4. Whenever you leave the console for a while, it directly goes into the power-saving mode. At this point, it instantly jumps from 70 watts to 10 watts.
This is something that many gamers love, as a lot of times during a game, they can be interrupted for a few hours. Sometimes you can even forget to turn off your console at night, which would normally be horrible, but with this new feature, it is not that bad. This feature normally saves a lot of gamers quite a bit of electricity over the course of a month.
Controller charging with the PlayStation console
THe PlayStation Controller is rechargeable; and normally every gamer attaches those to the USB slot of the PlayStation console. Even though they only use 5v over the course of a month that is something that you need to remember when figuring how much electricity the console uses.
Devices that can be used to measure electricity
Since you have learned the power consumption of the PlayStation consoles, you can use different cost-cutting methods in order to avoid larger bills. For the exact amount of electricity measurement, you will need some kind of device to measure power usage at different intervals of the usage.
You can buy different current measuring devices here! Although some devices are hundreds of dollars, this place sells them for around $20.
Conclusion
Now that you know the energy usage of the PlayStation consoles, you can decide for yourself if they are worth using or not. With the new features implemented into the system, most people decide that the console is definitely worth buying and playing. This is because the console has so many great games, and although it may use some more energy than a different machine, it is still a very cheap form of entertainment.
If you have not purchased your PlayStation 4 yet, this is the best place to get one! They are even on sale right now, so act fast.