As the current console generation of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One comes to a close, there's no doubt that many are looking forward to what the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Project Scarlett can do. The main concern for many gamers may be available games, power output, graphical enhancements, and more, but it seems that president and CEO of SIE Jim Ryan has one more area of concern for the next-gen console: being environmentally friendly.
Ryan announced that he will join other leaders in the gaming industry at the UN Climate Summit to establish a new partnership, the Playing for the Planet alliance, and to commit to the efforts of the UN Environment committee. Ryan also pledged the company to preservation of natural resources and that the PS5 company's beliefs fall in line with the mission and objectives of the UN Environment, and that this partnership will help reach sustainable development goals.
As part of this, he also revealed that the PlayStation 5 will have a much lower power consumption rate than the PS4, using an estimated 0.5 watts in the process. With 1 million gamers using this feature, that'll save roughly the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes. That doesn't mean SIE's contributions begin with the PS5, though, as Ryan talked about reducing the power consumption of the PS4 as well.
Certain Sony technologies such as System-on-a-Chip architecture with a high-performance graphics processor, die shrink, power scaling, and Suspend-to-RAM have all been contributions to reducing the consumption by the PS4, as well. In laymen's terms, certain improvements have made it to where the PS4 and SIE have avoided over 16 million metric tons of carbon emissions, which would be 29 million metric tons over the next 10 years. This is equal to the CO2 emissions for Denmark in 2017.
Ryan also said that, beyond hardware and operations, SIE is keen to help others with sustainability goals. SIE is currently working with industry members and climate experts for accurate material related to sustainability themes in games and said that SIE will investigate potential PSVR apps to raise awareness as well. To end, Ryan talks about the growth of the industry and how the Playing for the Planet alliance is a chance for many to take a stand.
Source: PlayStation Blog