PS3 is Power Hungry.

[ToonyLoons]

Link from GameSpot article.

The PlayStation 3: Blu-ray player, next-gen game machine, multimedia hub--and power guzzler. According to a report by the Australian Consumers' Association's Choice publication, leaving their PS3 on when they're not gaming would cost gamers A$250 ($239) a year in electricity bills.

That's the same as five fridges, and "serves as an important reminder to turn off video game systems after use." Before Microsoft fans get too smug, though, the Xbox 360 came in a close second place.

The PS3, while on and playing a game, consumes some 33.34kWh weekly--equivalent to around A$5 ($4.79). When on but idle, it uses almost as much, sapping 31.74kWh, or A$4.76 ($4.56). When the machine was off (with the back switch on) power usage plummeted to 0.30kWh or A$0.04 ($0.04) a week.

In comparison, the Xbox 360 used up 26kWh per week in power when on and playing a game--about A$3.90 ($3.73) in real money. When on but idle, the figure was slightly reduced to 23.47kWh or around A$3.53 ($3.37), and when off used up only 0.40kWh or A$0.06 ($0.06) a week.

Unsurprisingly, the Nintendo Wii used the least power--under 10 percent of that needed for the PS3. Playing a game, it uses 3.14kWh costing A$0.47 ($0.45) a week, and on but idle it drained 2.97kWh or A$0.45 ($0.43). When the console was switched off, but WiiConnect24 remained on, this dropped to 1.78kWh, costing A$0.27 ($0.26) a week. When WiiConnect24 was also turned off, this figure became 0.32kWh or A$0.05 ($0.05) a week.

The report also found that the Plasma TV set tested was also a "power hungry device" and required over four times as much power as a traditional CRT analogue TV set.

I wonder which PS3 they used for the test. Their might not be much of a difference between the different versions, but I would think the power consumption would be different between a launch 60gb and the current 40gb.