Xbox Is Now the First Carbon Aware Console, Update Rolling Out to Everyone Soon

[darknessblade]

Summary

Microsoft makes a update that changes the power settings of the Xbox to battle "Climate change"

 

Quotes

Quote

Summary

• Today, we’d like to share an update on how we’re progressing toward our commitments of being carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste by 2030.  
• By 2030, we will design Xbox products and accessories, and all Microsoft product packaging, to be 100% recyclable in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
• Last year, we made improvements to the console’s Energy Saver sleep mode. Energy Saver mode consumes about 20 times less power than Standby mode when the console is not being used or receiving updates. Now, system and game updates can be downloaded during Energy Saver mode, further saving energy.
• We’ve also revisited the materials we use in our products by incorporating Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) resins in Xbox Series S and our controllers.
• For more information on what we’re doing, keep reading and check out our new sustainability hub for Xbox: xbox.com/sustainability

 

My thoughts

Why do companies make shitty changes like this to hardware WE BUY an own. What will come next? Xbox deciding when we can game on the Xbox like the government in china.

 

Yes you can re-enable it. but if Xbox can get away with this, they soon will enforce more draconian settings.

Not forgetting how will this update work? If the console shuts down right as it is installing a new firmware?

Or is the system smart enough to detect if it has to install 200+GB of updates before shutting down?

 

This is nothing more than a company shifting the climate issue to a consumer issue, when big tech is to blame.

 

Sources

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/01/11/xbox-carbon-aware-console-sustainability/

https://www.geekwire.com/2023/a-carbon-aware-update-for-the-xbox-is-drawing-political-attention/

https://nypost.com/2023/01/24/critics-slam-new-carbon-aware-xbox-console/

https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/xboxs-carbon-aware-update-is-great-but-can-we-take-its-climate-goals-seriously/

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Uh… what’s the issue with this? I’m legitimately confused because it looks like this is entirely a good thing….

[Poinkachu]

I don't own an xbox, so idk if the system that got this update actually went bonkers or what.
But yea, I don't really see what to complain about if the new power saving mode works well. Especially if it means less wattage usage as well. Less wattage used, less expensive electricity bill.

And based on your post seems the option to not use it is still provided.

And if the case is like that, I don't think I can call it shitty changes.

[-rascal-]

What? How is this an issue, and how is Chinese-like government control involved?

 

The console won't shut down during patches, update, and firmware updates.

It's running that while in low power mode, and will kick up into a higher power state when needed.

It's literally lower power sleep / idle state.

[Bananasplit_00]

This is the shittiest take I've seen in tech news in years

[Spotty]

What about this update makes you so upset?

 

The update changes the default power plan setting for a lower power standby state "Shutdown (energy saving)". It allows the console to perform updates while in a lower power standby state and schedules it during off peak hours while electricity is in less demand. It does not affect gameplay or performance. Users can select a different power plan in the Power Options settings.

[WereCat]

OP is upset because a SW update makes his console recyclable 

[Poinkachu]

8 minutes ago, Spotty said:

What about this update makes you so upset?

 

The update changes the default power plan setting for a lower power standby state "Shutdown (energy saving)". It allows the console to perform updates while in a lower power standby state and schedules it during off peak hours while electricity is in less demand. It does not affect gameplay or performance. Users can select a different power plan in the Power Options settings.

 

Well, considering he put Climate Change in quotes, maybe that's the issue he had with ?

[manikyath]

33 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

 

Why do companies make shitty changes like this to hardware WE BUY an own. What will come next? Xbox deciding when we can game on the Xbox like the government in china.

shitty changes? like what? sleep mode improvments so that the device uses less power.. SAVING YOU MONEY IN THE PROCESS?

perhaps shitty changes such as.. reducing the E-waste problem?

 

you know... microsoft is a horrid company, that does a lot of braindead things.. but if you cant give them a pass when they do some good, they have no reason to even try anymore.

 

what's the alternate course here? that outrage about the recyclability of their xbox controllers causes change in microsoft, and they announce that their controllers are now glued and potted front to back to make absolutely sure it cannot be recycled. that we go back to consoles running their processor AT FULL TILT BECAUSE SCREW POWER DRAW even when sitting in the game menu?

 

39 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

 

This is nothing more than a company shifting the climate issue to a consumer issue, when big tech is to blame.

how is committing to have their products and packaging be recyclable "shifting the problem to consumers"?

how is optimizing their device to use less power when not in use "shifting the problem to consumers"?

 

unless i'm missing some huge red flag about this whole thing (which.. you havent bothered to quote, so i assume it's not there) you're just so far off base it isnt even funny anymore.

[Sauron]

37 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

• By 2030, we will design Xbox products and accessories, and all Microsoft product packaging, to be 100% recyclable in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

As far as I know this is literally impossible with modern electronics. At least not without significant energy expenditure and therefore emissions.

24 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

Uh… what’s the issue with this? I’m legitimately confused because it looks like this is entirely a good thing….

There's nothing directly wrong with it, it's just that it's an extremely marginal improvement that is being oversold as some huge step towards fighting climate change. AKA greenwashing.

41 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

Or is the system smart enough to detect if it has to install 200+GB of updates before shutting down?

Yes, it's smart enough. Have you ever used windows update?

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

As far as I know this is literally impossible with modern electronics. At least not without significant energy expenditure and therefore emissions.

even if they just are concious about separating out the circuitry from the plastic shell, rumble motots, batteries, etc. that's already much better than just treating the entire device as E-waste and throwing it on a trash pile in one part.

 

i know that *currently* we have no way to practically recycle the electronics themselves, but if even just the effort to get *somewhere* isnt appreciated, we'll never get there.

 

also - to me the most important thing here is the packaging. a LOT of electronics still come in packaging that is extremely annoying to dispose of, and is literally a trash bag full of landfill filler. even the most cynical people need to realise this needs to change if we want to have any chance at all at reducing our waste production.

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i know that *currently* we have no way to practically recycle the electronics themselves, but if even just the effort to get *somewhere* isnt appreciated, we'll never get there.

Sure, I just wish they wouldn't so readily lie about it.

[Bananasplit_00]

15 minutes ago, Sauron said:

There's nothing directly wrong with it, it's just that it's an extremely marginal improvement that is being oversold as some huge step towards fighting climate change. AKA greenwashing.

Greenwashing is gross, makes me want to throw up in most cases, but this is promising genuinely good things. 1/20th the power draw in standby? Thats not marginal and neither is making sure all of the packaging and more of the product can be recycled. Also comitting to use reclaimed plastic in their consoles is really good imo

[manikyath]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Sure, I just wish they wouldn't so readily lie about it.

i mean.. the bar for that is apple "recycling" their devices in a massive blender.

 

i dont disagree it's gonna suck, but anything is better than what we have now.

[ravenshrike]

29 minutes ago, manikyath said:

how is committing to have their products and packaging be recyclable "shifting the problem to consumers"?

 

"recyclable" 

Plastics recycling is mostly a giant fraud, and has been since the start. Moreover, the only way home recycling actually works is if you have separate crates for metal, glass, plastic, and paper, and the crates are open topped and small enough that it is comparatively easy to tell if improper materials have been placed in the bin. Otherwise it's just a giant shell game.

[darknessblade]

32 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Yes, it's smart enough. Have you ever used windows update?

You mean the windows update that will drain your laptops battery. when its in sleep/standby modus?

[Sauron]

Just now, darknessblade said:

You mean the windows update that will drain your laptops battery. when its in sleep/standby modus?

Do you run your xbox on battery power?

16 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Greenwashing is gross, makes me want to throw up in most cases, but this is promising genuinely good things. 1/20th the power draw in standby? Thats not marginal and neither is making sure all of the packaging and more of the product can be recycled. Also comitting to use reclaimed plastic in their consoles is really good imo

I do think it's quite marginal, standby power is already very low and they could also just let you turn it off. Better packagning is nice but it's too little, too late. This stuff should be the baseline of what is even acceptable. Instead they get tax writeoffs for it.

[jagdtigger]

PR stunt.... A meaningless one at that too.

[manikyath]

7 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

"recyclable" 

Plastics recycling is mostly a giant fraud, and has been since the start. Moreover, the only way home recycling actually works is if you have separate crates for metal, glass, plastic, and paper, and the crates are open topped and small enough that it is comparatively easy to tell if improper materials have been placed in the bin. Otherwise it's just a giant shell game.

even if we blindly assume plastics recycling will never happen at all (despite recycled plastics already being part of our everyday lives..)

 

there's still big chunks of metal in there, wires (copper), etc. if E-waste is dealt with properly, a LOT of that can be reclaimed correctly. a manufacturer committing to making that a possibility is already a big piece of the puzzle.

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Better packagning is nice but it's too little, too late. This stuff should be the baseline of what is even acceptable. Instead they get tax writeoffs for it.

so... they should just not? even if they're late, they're still doing it, and they arent the last to do so by a huge margin.

[jagdtigger]

40 minutes ago, manikyath said:

a manufacturer committing to making that a possibility is already a big piece of the puzzle.

Not happening because price of new material <<<<< reclaimed material from e-waste. A good way to deal with e-waste is to force manufacturers (and i mean a pistol to the head kind of force, not a neutered one like the self repair bill in NY) to release every lock, key, SW, and tools for an EOL product they dont intend to support so it could get repurposed into something useful.

Edited January 25, 2023 by jagdtigger

[BobVonBob]

On 1/25/2023 at 3:05 AM, Sauron said:

I do think it's quite marginal, standby power is already very low and they could also just let you turn it off.

I thought so too, turns out standby mode currently uses ridiculous amounts of power, 15-30 watts depending on the model. There seems to be roughly 20 million Xbox Series consoles sold, and I'm making a wild guess that maybe 75% are plugged in at any given time, so reducing that idle draw by 20 times saves somewhere around 300 megawatts globally. That's one entire medium sized power plant gone.

 

Now there's the secondary argument of what in the flying fuck was Microsoft doing making a console that draws that much power in standby, but reducing that draw is at least a net positive.

[darknessblade]

33 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Do you run your xbox on battery power?

 

I do not own  a X-box.

[Taf the Ghost]

I like low-power draw idle states. I think they're generally a good thing.

 

Rest of this mostly corporate nonsense.

 

Consulting PR Idea: sell flags that says "I'm a good person" for 100k. Some big companies will pay a mint for them.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

Uh… what’s the issue with this? I’m legitimately confused because it looks like this is entirely a good thing….

Swap Xbox for Laptop and this would be great news lol. Damn it I don't want better battery run time!

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

how is committing to have their products and packaging be recyclable "shifting the problem to consumers"?

how is optimizing their device to use less power when not in use "shifting the problem to consumers"?

 

Extrapolating from what i've seen elsewhere on the internet, (so apply salt ofc), an unfortunate number of people have seen article about how much large companies produce in the way of greenhouse gas emissions and see that it's way more that every private citizen in their country combined and therefore the problem is all the big evil corporations producing the emissions and private citizens have almost nothing to do with it.

 

Which of course conveniently ignores that all those companies are only producing those emissions in the process of creating products for Mr joe Blogs - Private Citizen. But you still see it a lot, people wanting the "evil companies" to deal with the issues without any change in their lives.