Xbox has officially become the first console to offer carbon-aware game downloads and updates. Jonathan Hildebrandt, Principal Group Program Manager, Xbox Experiences, shared the news today in a post regarding the Xbox February Update, which is rolling out right now with sustainability updates and other features, including the ability to hide game art and the option of using the Google Home app as a touch remote control for Xbox. Microsoft explained last month that being carbon aware means reducing carbon footprint by optimizing updates and downloads to run at a time when the console can use the most renewable energy.
From an Xbox Wire post:
Xbox is now the first console to offer carbon aware game downloads and updates. When your console is plugged in, connected to the internet and regional carbon intensity data is available, Xbox will schedule game, app, and OS updates for your console at specific times during the nightly maintenance window that may result in lower carbon emissions because a higher proportion of electricity is coming from lower-carbon sources on the electric grid. This decreases fossil fuel dependency and CO2 emissions and could potentially save you money.
You can choose what works best for you and adjust your settings at any time. Shutdown (energy saving) cuts power use by up to 20x when it’s off compared to the Sleep power option. For every two consoles that switch to Shutdown (energy saving) for one year, we will save the equivalent amount of carbon removed by one tree planted and grown for a decade. This is based on an average of Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles on Shutdown (energy saving) for 20 hours per day for 1 year; actual energy savings and avoided emissions may vary by console and other factors using Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator | US EPA.
Discussion (10 replies)
Join Discussion →So now updates will run mid day... because that's when solar panels are optimally outputting power? I mean... THAT's their big play to be 'carbon aware"? Seems a bit lackluster and something designed just to garner some good will from I dunno... mellenials or gen z?
Well, it's kind of a trick. They already set all the consoles to turn off and not sleep... so they really don't download any updates at all --- at least until you turn them on to play a game and find out you have to wait 30min-3hrs for your shit to update before you can run anything.
But otherwise - yeah. Same crap Apple started doing with carbon-friendly charging schedules. There's an API out there somewhere that tells you the "carbon intensity" of your utility grid based on time of day.
That's one reason I'm happy to be rid of consoles. There is nothing worse than happily sitting down to play a game only to not be able to start for hours, becasuse you need this update and that update and a firmware update, and accept our new tos while you are at it.
Never seen hours anything on ps4, switch ( or wii) consoles... Ps3 I think I may have.
Pcs on the other hand.... Anything and everything updates.. Its a disgrace.
If you play rarely enough you are greeted with an update every time you want to play. On PC most updates happen in the background while I'm using it, or when I turn it off, not inconveniencing me at all (except for when MS tries to install Windows 11 without your say so)
You just know that a subset of environmentally conscious console owners are going to redownload their entire game libraries to make sure they have the carbon-aware "versions". ;) And that sweet eco-friendly achievement trophy is going to be tough to resist. ?
BTW, those of you on Windows 11 might want to keep an eye on your update and power settings, because Windows Update is now carbon aware too. And because Microsoft believes it owns your PC, it won't bother to inform you or ask for your consent before making important changes.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-update-is-now-carbon-aware-a53f39bc-5531-4bb1-9e78-db38d7a6df20[/URL]
I see at least two flaws (I suspect more but will hold off on speaking about them until I know more about how this is being rolled out) in this approach.
1. If limiting when devices en masse will do this, it will also mean a focused draw on the grid, many of which are out of date and need to be upgraded and have shown issues during times of high usage. Granted consoles have a limited power footprint but when you're talking about hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, that's a different story.
2. The times of renewable (solar?) production also happens to be the same time many are using air conditioning during the hotter months, which again with my first point is adding strain to aged power grids. As someone who installed solar to primarily offset the costs of our AC I'm acutely aware of this.
Yes, electricity during the night is also cheaper because you can't completely shut down power plants, so you get a ton of excess electricity. So actually the most carbon aware method is doing it in the middle of the freaking night. There are literally no grids that completely rely on renewables. So this makes zero sense. It is a virtue signal that probably does harm in practice.
I was reading something a couple of days ago, pretty sure just the random news bite, about how many companies out there are quick to jump on the net-zero bandwagon and promote it but if folks look closer at the actual implementations being used how it is often not the case. I'm all for the concept but clearly, more thought needs to be put into it.
I found that article.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/business/companies-net-zero-climate-report-intl/index.html[/URL]
The Carbon API goes by generation on the grid...
so that will take into account solar, nuclear, wind, etc. as well as if the demand is high and they need to fire up peakers to hit more demand. Peakers of different types have different carbon intensity scores - so they weight it depending on what's running at the time to satisfy the demand (Coal would add much more than natural gas, for instance, and there's some amount of battery capacity out there as well). It doesn't really look at demand side - as they are making the assumption that the coordinators will fire enough generation to satisfy the demand.
Thank you California Grid for making me know all of this ><
So yeah, you are right, if everyone in the world shifts to just doing updates in the middle of the day, the coordinators would need to fire up more generation to account for that, but the carbon intensity would adjust based on the new running assets and some other time of day would now potentially have a lower carbon intensity so the API would reflect that and the updates would track and shift that way, ideally it all kind of settles out.
I'd also point out - for most areas, especially Texas - retail Wind generation greatly outpaces solar generation, close to 3:1, and in the US overall hydro is still huge (around twice as much hydro retail generation as solar). Wind generally runs late night and peaks very early AM time period (and tends to wane just before solar starts to ramp up), so it doesn't really overlap with solar too much. And nuclear isn't insignificant: it still provides close to 20% of our national power. So there are a lot of carbon-neutral generation sources other than just solar out there; solar is just the one most residential folks are familiar with.
The thing I worry most about: for those of us with crappy Time-of-Use rates, what if the lowest carbon intensity starts to track to the most expensive electrical rate?