Microsoft says its new developer tools can reduce Xbox’s climate impact
Enlarge / These tools won't literally make vines grow out of your Xbox, but that's definitely the image Microsoft wants to get across... (credit: Xbox)
When it comes to reducing gaming's aggregate impact on climate change, previous research has shown that the energy needed to power the game-playing hardware is responsible for the bulk of the industry's greenhouse gas emissions. That's especially true for console and PC games, which can draw hundreds of watts of power between the game hardware, display, and speakers.
To help limit the environmental impact of all this gameplay, Microsoft announced Wednesday the release of new tools for Xbox developers to measure and limit the amount of power drawn by their games.
Designing games to be more energy-efficient is not a new concept in the industry, of course. Mobile developers often must be conscious of how quickly a game will drain a limited smartphone battery. On the other end of the spectrum, pushing a PC or console GPU too far could literally melt it.