Xbox is considering letting players reduce game performance to save energy

Microsoft is considering allowing players to reduce game performance in order to save energy.

As reported by Windows Central, a new survey on the PC version of the Xbox Insider app asks players about energy efficiency.

It includes a number of questions around how concerned players are about energy use.

A number of these questions refer to the possibility of letting a game drop its performance in order to use less processing power and therefore cut energy usage.

One question asks: “In general, how would you feel about having in-game features that can optimise settings to save energy if you toggled them on?”

It then specifies: “Game settings adjustments could be things like resolution, frame rate, visual effects, or GPU.”

It follows this up with: “In general, how would you feel about individual games automatically lowering frame rate or resolution when the game is left idle or inactive (to save energy)?”

It also asks players if they’re worried that turning on energy saving features may negatively impact their gameplay experience.

Further reading

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Switching Xbox to Energy Saver mode can save £60 per year in the UK, it’s claimed

The low-power mode significantly reduces energy consumption while on standby

In March 2022, Microsoft made Energy Saver mode the default option on all new Xbox consoles, which uses up 0.5 watts of energy while on standby.

This is in comparison to Instant-On mode, which keeps the console in a suspended state and boots up extremely quickly when it’s turned on, but uses up 13 watts of energy.

Since then, Microsoft has also allowed players to download updates in Energy Saver mode, and reduced the console boot time, making Energy Saver mode an even more enticing prospect.