Microsoft has often touted its efforts for environmental sustainability in the tech world. The company aims to become carbon negative by 2030, and has achieved a number of milestones in the past few years towards this goal. In 2021, the Cloud for Sustainability Platform was launched to offer actionable insights on carbon emissions, while just last year, the tech giant introduced a new feature in Windows 11 to help make PCs more energy-efficient. Dedicated section unveiled.
Today, Microsoft has announced Xbox has become the first carbon-aware console. – which essentially means that the scheduling of updates and downloads for all console types will be optimized in a way that minimizes their carbon footprint.
In more detail, when the user’s Xbox is connected to the Internet and regional carbon intensity data is also available, all updates and downloads will be scheduled during periods where energy is available, as opposed to earlier “random” wake-ups. Highly renewable resources can be used. Between 2 am and 6 am
To access this though, the energy settings on the Xbox will first need to be set to the ‘Shutdown (power saving)’ power setting – something that will happen automatically for Insiders with The pass is currently available as an option on the Series X. S. Without negatively affecting any other standard performance or gameplay offering for the console, the power saving setting will reduce power by up to 20x while the console is simply put to sleep. Notably, remote wakeup will not be supported while this option is enabled.
Xbox One owners will also receive this update on their consoles soon, with the main difference compared to current-gen consoles being that slower boot times will be experienced if the aforementioned power settings are selected.
To compare what kind of difference using the feature will make, Microsoft says that for every two consoles that take advantage of the new configuration for a year (about 20 hours per day), Carbon An equivalent amount of will be removed by 1 tree. Those planted and grown for a decade will survive. The update that will bring these new features to users is rolling out today to Xbox Insiders, while the general community will have to wait a little longer.
