Australia’s Sky News is very upset about Xbox’s recent upgrade to the console’s power-saving options, under the headline ‘Woke brigade is after video games’.
Just take a moment now. Let that hang in the air for a minute.
The first half of Sky’s piece, recycled from its U.S. counterpart Fox News, reads like a fairly normal news blog. Nine short pars more or less explaining the particulars of the new Xbox ‘carbon aware’ update. If you’re not across it, here’s the gist: Xbox has issued a software update across Series X, S, and Xbox One consoles that change each platform’s approach to power management. A new function called the shutdown energy-saving power option allows the console to enter a low-power mode with less draw than the conventional sleep mode. The update shuts off more non-essential functions within the console, though it will still update your games overnight while the console is off. The trade-off is that your Xbox will take slightly longer to boot up when you next turn it on.
Another new feature lets users set the console’s active hours. Series X|S consoles will automatically turn this feature on based on the default player’s active playtime hours. Xbox One users have to configure it manually.
Who, you may ask, does Sky News believe is mad about this update, and why?
The first is U.S. senator Ted Cruz, who tweeted: “First gas stoves, then your coffee, now they’re gunning for your Xbox.” I’m uncertain if Senator Cruz or Sky News bothered to check, but neither gas stoves nor coffee are under attack of any sort. Both, in fact, are popular and available here and abroad. This same sentiment is then echoed by another U.S. politician, Representative Troy Nehls, almost word-for-word. It’s almost like the pair got together and decided on the disingenuous bullshit soundbites they were going to throw out ahead of time.
The piece then pulls from troll accounts like Young America’s Foundation, saying “Lol now the woke brigade is after video games all in the name of climate change.” This is followed by other conservative Twitter cookers like journalist John Ziegler — “Could this be what finally makes some young people realize the negative real-world impacts of the #ClimateScam?!” — and American Greatness editor/publisher Chris Buskirk — “You’ll own nothing and you’ll love it. ‘Deciding what to do with my so-called ‘free time’ gave me anxiety but now that MSFT-owned OpenAI orders my days I’m worry free,’” which is a fucking weird response to an expensive toy trying to save you some money on the power bill.
If you want real critique of Xbox’s gestures at a more climate-friendly future for its business, I will urge you to read Jackson Ryan’s excellent piece on the update over on CNET. Jackson takes a clear-eyed, scientific look at the positives and negatives of updates like this and places them against the broader scope of Xbox’s practices and marketing. It’s a phenomenal, thoroughly researched yarn, and I can’t recommend it enough.
A reminder that if you only play Xbox on your TV, or take advantage of its new power-saving features, you will never have to watch Sky News on it.
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