Every week we do a quick wrap-up of some news items that may have slipped through the cracks. The wrap-ups will be shorter versions of our articles, lumped together to give you an idea of things you may have missed.

Your Gaming Consoles Are Costing You Money

But don’t worry, it’s not nearly as much as you spent on the systems, the games, the controllers or even the rechargeable batteries. The National Resources Defense Council have released a study revealing just how much energy your gaming consoles are using in terms of hard-earned dollars. With all of the current generation consoles having at least some kind of power-drain even when turned off, it’d be good to know how much we can save by simply having them unplugged or fully powered down. Unfortunately, it won’t save you much, as the average use while idle for the current systems ranges from $3 to $15 dollars per year depending on your revision, but it’s still an interesting break down. Obviously, when leaving the systems on the cost goes into the hundreds, but still pales in comparison to the power consumption you’d get from simply using your TV, microwave, or even computer.

One omission from the study that I noticed was the lack of recognition that when Wii’s Connect24 is enabled, the system actually consumes more power than the other systems when powered down as it still runs the networking in the background. While it still pales in comparison to the amount of power consumed while idle on the other machines, it is an interesting piece of info that people who leave their Wii off more are likely to spend more on electricity than those who leave their other consoles off. That amount of money is not enough to even afford a budget title per year, so it’s nothing to brag about.

New Xbox Experience Is Here

That’s right, Microsoft has pushed out the NXE to all Xbox 360 owners who are connected to Xbox Live, and it’s getting a whole lot of mixed opinions as far as I’ve seen. It seems to be getting more praise from the journalist side, those who’ve had a bit more time to adjust and play around with it, I gather, but it is certainly not universally loved. It also scared quite a few users with visions of RROD, but it was simply just a few dashboard freezes, most of which seems to be cleared up by now.

We plan on putting some impressions and a bit of a guide to the NXE up sometime this weekend. As of right now I still have the Blades active so I can map out a few of the features that people might be looking for in the new dashboard. Netflix remains as a US feature, as well, but the marketplace will still be loading up with new content for users all around the world. Go check it out, create an Avatar and play a game or something.

Video Game Ads Banned

Some may recall back when GTA IV was on the precipice of ruining our fragile minds and corrupting the youth earlier this fall that the Chicago Transit Authority pulled ads for the game off their vehicles due to a report on the local FOX News affiliate. Well, considering the cost of those campaigns, Take-Two took offense and launched a lawsuit against the CTA citing the free speech initiatives and contractual obligations. It turns out that justice prevailed, but at a cost. The CTA will run the ads now for six weeks, after the judge sided with Take-Two, but they will never run an advertisement for an “M” rated game again.

It’s a bit of an odd jump and seems like a whole lot of sour grapes. Considering the content of GTA IV doesn’t go much further than your average R-rated action film, the precedent that is now set is more indicative of a culture that still fears games, and a mainstream media that has all but fully accepted the idea that video game violence and real violence go hand-in-hand. The CTA officials were even cited as saying that there was a very real correlation between the two, and not only is that fairly unfounded, it’s also hotly contested on a pretty wide scale. Regardless of the ruling, and doubtful that it will be a major effect on the world advertising companies, it’s still a bad start and another odd sense of morality that some business has taken in promoting another business based on spurious allegations and sensationalist media.