Turn It On: PlayStation 5's Power Saving Feature Better Than PlayStation 4

It's laudable when the likes of Sony's PlayStation are pitching in to help Mother Nature regain some of her vigor. These are little steps that they make to give back, and it'll eventually pay off when the entire industry – and we're not only talking about gaming and entertainment, but the whole lot – unite for one cause.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) President and Chief Executive Jim Ryan recently shared his involvement with the United Nations' Playing for the Planet alliance. Together with some of the top names in the gaming industry, PlayStation will also make their “formal commitments” to the cause and objectives of the UN Environment, as well as to the newly created Youth and Environment Alliance.

As part of their effort, Engadget reported that Sony will be outfitting the PlayStation 5 with a “more power-efficient sleep mode” that not only will become a trademark in Sony's plans for a sustainable future, but also to make its “gaming products more environmentally friendly.”

But this is not the first time Ryan and his team have made the console a bit more “green.” SIE created the PlayStation 4 to consume less power but using “efficient technologies” including an SoC architecture with “high-performance” graphics, die shrink and power scaling.

The PS 4 also had an “energy saving mode” like Suspend-to-RAM. This is a state where a system enters a low-power mode and stores system configuration information, open apps and active files to its main memory, “while most the system's other components are turned off.”

“For context, we estimate the carbon emissions we have avoided to date already amount to almost 16 million metric tons, increasing to 29 million metric tons over the course of the next 10 years,” Ryan said on his statement, adding that the number is equal to the amount of CO2 emitted by Denmark in 2017.

In contrast to the PS 4, Sony's next-generation console will be more energy-efficient. This will be done through the possibility to “suspend gameplay with much lower power consumption" than its predecessor. Ryan added that this can be achieved “at around 0.5W."

“If just one million users enable this feature, it would save equivalent to the average electricity use of 1,000 U.S. homes,” he said.

In line with what Ryan reiterated, IGN posted a study that saw American gamers emitting “around 12 million tons” of carbon dioxide every year. Sony's plan is to slowly address and limit its carbon emission by adding power saving modes to its consoles.

If the PlayStation 5 can surpass the previous numbers, and if Sony pushes to include “suspend gameplay," there's a big possibility that the company is well on its way in keeping its promise to help the environment.

But Sony can only do so much. The use of the mode will still depend on those who will buy the PlayStation 5. The source added that the “setting is optional;” future owners of the console will have the freedom to turn it on and make nature smile, or turn a blind eye.