In line with Sony’s insistence on zero environmental loads to achieve zero environmental footprints by 2050, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has been working hard to improve product (energy) efficiency.
In its ESG briefing, Sony reiterated its commitment to improving the energy efficiency of TVs, game consoles and other consumer electronic products. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021 (FY2020), the annual electricity consumption of a single product was 54% lower than the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014 (FY2013).
Energy Efficiency
The performance of PS5 is greatly improved compared to PS4. For example, the reading speed of the PS5 solid-state hard disk is about 100 times faster than that of the PS4 hard disk. Generally, when the product generation changes, the performance improvement will increase the power consumption at startup, especially for game products. SIE’s ESG team has always focused on ensuring that newly launched game consoles are energy-efficient and efficient.
The PS5 generation host has achieved outstanding efficiency reduction through some new improvements, including high-efficiency chipsets based on AMD Zen2 and RDNA2, power supplies, and low-power modes. Some examples of significant improvements are as follows: At startup, the power consumption of the PS5 media application and the main screen is much lower than that of PS4 and PS4 Pro.
- Playing PS4 games on PS5 can use about one-third less power than when playing on PS4 Pro.
- Compared with PS4 and PS4 Pro, PS5 consumes about 80% less energy in standby mode and reduces energy consumption by 28-39% when using USB charging when connected to the Internet.
Although PS5 games generally require more energy consumption than PS4 games, these improvements are expected to offset some of the impact-PS5’s energy consumption is about 11-17% lower than the PS4 launched in 2013. Taking all the improvements in PS5 energy efficiency into consideration, for every one million game consoles sold by SIE, it is estimated that it is equivalent to avoiding carbon emissions of approximately 46,000 tons per year.
Taking all PS5 game consoles sold from November 2020 to August 2021 as an example, based on five years of use, this is equivalent to avoiding 6.2 terawatt-hours of electricity consumption-the annual consumption of about 1.7 million British households Average electricity consumption.
Product waste recycling and packaging improvement
In addition, SIE further studied the life cycle and packaging of the host and introduced a new standard. The plastic shell of the host is made of PC ABS, ABS and polycarbonate (PC) plastics. To help recycle used hosts, we guarantee that recyclers can use readily available tools on the market to dismantle larger parts (greater than 100 grams).
We also ensure that the content of halogen-based flame retardants in plastic shell parts (greater than 25 grams) does not exceed 0.1% (by mass). In addition, where feasible, we mark the material composition and flame retardant content of plastic parts weighing more than 20 grams (if the flame retardant accounts for 0.1% or more by mass), so that it can be easily identified during recycling Different kinds of plastics.
In addition, SIE has also implemented resource-saving packaging specifications for PS5, and has developed a new global packaging design program-plastic content no more than 1% to 7% (calculated by unit and weight, depending on the product). This is an important step forward for SIE, but in order to complete Sony’s plan to no longer use plastic packaging for small products by 2025, SIE will continue to explore all possibilities.