Saving energy has been an important concern with current-gen consoles. Both the Xbox Series X/S and the PlayStation 5 offer options to place the consoles into a sleep mode that can let players still download updates and games while being able to resume activity quickly. However, using modes like this still requires energy, and Xbox owners who are worried about their energy consumption may have a new option available to them in the future. Microsoft appears to be considering an option to let players reduce the performance of their games to help save energy.
The news comes via a user survey that was given to players on the Xbox Insider app on PC. As spotted by Windows Central, the survey includes questions that ask players about how much of a concern energy consumption is to them. On top of that, some of the questions mention the idea of reducing in-game performance while playing a title, which would subsequently reduce the processing power being used by the Xbox. If the Xbox is using less power to run its games, then there would also be less energy being consumed.
When it comes to what would be reduced in the games themselves, the survey mentions that “game settings adjustments could be things like resolution, frame rate, visual effects, or GPU.” It’s important to note that the survey also mentions that this could be both while games are running or when they are idle. The survey asks users how they would feel about “individual games automatically lowering frame rate or resolution when the game is left idle or inactive (to save energy)?”
Currently, the Xbox Series consoles include modes like Instant-On. This mode leaves the console in a suspended state where it can be woken up quickly. It uses 13 watts of electricity in comparison to the 0.5 watts that are being used when the console is on Energy Saver mode.
This is not too surprising a move for Microsoft, as a recent update to the Xbox Series X/S dashboard improved the clarity of the power-saving settings menu to give players a more detailed breakdown of how much energy is being used by their Xbox in each mode.
It’s hard to say whether this feature will actually make it to users as Microsoft is only questioning players about the topic using a survey at the moment. However, in a time where saving energy is more important than ever, it could prove useful to Xbox gamers.
