Sony Interactive Entertainment working with Playing for the Planet to reduce wasted energy

Just turn it off. Standby is so old-school.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced plans to make future hardware as eco-friendly as possible. Speaking in a post on the official PlayStation Blog, SIE President Jim Ryan explains how PlayStation will be working with United Nations initiative Playing for the Planet to make the PlayStation 5 a more efficient console than previous hardware.

“At SIE, we have made substantial commitments and efforts to reduce the power consumption of the PS4 by utilizing efficient technologies such as System-on-a-Chip architecture… die shrink, power scaling” writes Ryan. “For context, we estimate the carbon emissions we have avoided to date already amount to almost 16 million metric tons, increasing to 29 million metric tons over the course of the next 10 years (which equals the CO2 emissions for the nation of Denmark in 2017).”

Ryan goes on to explain how the next iteration of PlayStation will be able to suspend gameplay at the cost of around 0.5 watts, noting that if just one million users activated this feature, it would save the equivalent amount of electricity that would power 1000 U.S. homes. PlayStation as a brand hopes to push the ecological improvements beyond that of its hardware and development departments, informing players and consumers of important sustainability goals.

Playing for the Planet is an initiative set for discussion at the UN Climate Summit, which takes place today at its headquarters in New York. The initiative hopes to see leading businesses in the video game industry come together to reduce their overall energy output, while also encouraging the preservation of natural resources.

PlayStation joins forces with United Nations to combat climate change [Official / Gematsu]