A new study from a group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University estimates that that roughly 68 percent of all energy consumed by game consoles in 2010 was spent in idle mode, wasting 10.8 TWh of energy — or roughly $1.24 billion in utility costs. Though the per-user impact would be small, the authors suggest that standardizing auto-shutoff features could significantly reduce nationwide consumption.

An update to the Xbox 360's firmware in May enabled the system's auto-off feature by default, but the PlayStation 3 still requires users to manually opt in. For more detailed analysis, check out the complete report at the source link below.