Previously WinBeta reported on The Natural Resources Defense Council saying the Xbox One is the most power hungry nextgen console, now Microsoft has made an improvement to their setup process asking users to choose a power mode. Before this change Xbox One consoles would default to Instant-On mode, which would consume more power in exchange for booting fast and keeping the console up-to-date. Now, new Xbox One owners will be asked if they want their console in Instant-On mode or Energy-Saver mode.
“In the coming months, new Xbox One owners around the world will be prompted with this choice in the initial console set-up process. Current Xbox One owners can easily make changes to their power consumption choices now in Settings under Power & start up,” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.
Giving users choice has been a frequent move by Microsoft which has passed the decision making on to their users with many of their different products. The Xbox One’s Instant-On feature was specifically designed to save gamers from the pain of waiting for game and system updates while they could be gaming. While this is a nice idea, in reality the console needed to be left in some state of ‘on’ to look for and apply updates. The other pain Xbox 360 users reported was boot times delaying gaming and Instant-On solved this problem as well but at a small power cost. Simply put, Energy-Saver mode turns the console completely off to save energy, but reintroduces update and boot delays.
