Microsoft’s Xbox is not technically officially supported in Malaysia. That also means that it is not technically officially on sale in the region. That does not mean that the Microsoft made console cannot be found in Malaysia. You still can get your hands on one from retailers across the nation. Because it is not officially supported here, you do have to register yourself as an Xbox user from Singapore.
If you do have an Xbox at home, you might be pleased to know that the next update for your gaming console might save you some money from your electricity bill in the coming months. The update is really meant to be Microsoft’s big effort in reducing carbon footprints and emissions across their hardware and even software. It is in-line with their goal of achieving carbon negativity, water positive, and zero-waste company by 2030.
They say that the next update makes the Xbox a little more carbon aware. That means that your console will now only push updates and software updates at optimized times in the day. Optimized as in it only runs at a time when the Xbox can use the least amount of non-renewable energy, or when renewable energy becomes more abundant, whatever that means.
How it does that is quite clever, to be fair. When plugged in and connected to the internet, the Xbox will have access to the regional carbon intensity data. Whether the data includes Malaysia or not has not been revealed. With that data though, the Xbox will schedule its various downloads and updates at specific times where carbon emissions are lowest. Instead of a programmed schedule for your updates (2.00 a.m. – 6.00 a.m. by default), your console only wakes up at specific times where your local energy grid is at its most carbon efficient state and turns back off again after those specified times.
The update will also bring a more energy efficient mode to the Xbox when it is not in use. They dub it the energy saving mode. Instead of the Xbox going to sleep, it goes to Shutdown automatically. They say that other than slower booth times, it will not affect performances, gameplay, or its automatic updates. It just sort of turns off the Xbox until you switch it on, or when it wants to update. They say that Shutdown power mode will reduce the console’s power consumption by over 20 folds compared to the regular Sleep option. Reduced power consumption not only means lower carbon emissions, it also means you pay less for your electricity. Sleep is still an optional power mode for your console, you just need to dig deeper into the settings to make it an available power option by default.
You still get a lot of control over your Xbox though. If you want your console to just power up and get into your games immediately, you can adjust its ‘Active Hours’. It allows you to still have your console to go into Sleep mode immediately, but only at selected times. Outside of those selected ‘Active Hours’ your Xbox goes into Shutdown mode automatically to draw less than 1W of power.
The carbon awareness update for your Xbox will be available soon. The power saving modes is only available for Xbox Insider members though, oddly enough. Then again, being an Xbox Insider might give you early access to plenty of things too, which could be a big appeal in itself. More information can be found in their news blog.