Green gamers, when they're not too busy checking out NXE on the Xbox 360 or playing with sack people on the PS3, really care about the toll their hobby takes on the environment. So the following should be of interest to a growing number of you...

The Natural Resources Defense Council today released a report on the carbon output of the current generation of game consoles: Sony's Playstation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. Unsurprisingly, the Wii consumes the least amount of electricity among the three, even less than its predecessor, the Gamecube. The same is not true for the PS3 and Xbox 360 with their multi-core processors...

On average, the report found that Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 use large amounts of electricity – 150 Watts and 119 Watts respectively – including much more power than their prior generation of game consoles. These two systems can each consume more than 1,000 kilowatt-hours per year if left on all the time, which is equal to the annual energy use of two new refrigerators. The Nintendo Wii, however, uses significantly less power when on – at less than 20 Watts – and actually uses slightly less power than the previous generation of their console.

Interesting comparison, but it's doubtful that even hard core gamers leave their machines on all the time. And indeed, the report (PDF available here, 316 KB) does offer a chart early on that illustrates the huge difference in energy costs between turning the console off after playing a game (PS3 rev.2007: $12/year) and leaving it on 24/7 (PS3 rev.2007: $134/year). It also comes to a determination of just how much electricity is wasted -- $1 Billion, FYI -- and how much the consoles are consuming, "an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year--roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego."

There's tons more data and statistics, so grab the PDF and see for yourself.

[via Slashdot]