What does a games console cost to run?
Far less than a gaming PC, but a current console under load still draws around 200 watts — and rest mode keeps sipping when you think it is off.
Typical model is rated 200W
Price cap is 26.11p
5p per hour, 730 hours a year, 146 kWh in total — about £3 a month.
A current-generation console pulls roughly 180–200 watts running a demanding game, dropping to a fraction of that on menus or media. A couple of hours of play a day is cheap over a year — comfortably less than a gaming PC doing the same job, because the hardware is tuned for efficiency rather than outright power.
The hidden cost is rest mode. Left ready for instant-on and background downloads, a console can draw several watts around the clock, which over a year rivals the cost of the actual gaming. Switching rest mode off, or fully powering down overnight, is the one saving worth making.
The short answer: Cheap to play, but rest mode running all year can cost as much as the gaming itself.
What actually helps
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. It costs you nothing extra and does not affect the figures above.
This is the small stuff
Every appliance on this site put together is usually less than a third of a typical energy bill. Heating the house is the rest of it. If the numbers here bothered you, the number that actually matters is what your heating costs — and whether a heat pump would make it better or worse in your particular house.
Work out your heating costOther appliances
Energy figures checked 2026-08-26. Electricity priced at the Ofgem cap for 1 July – 30 September 2026. Your own machine and tariff will differ — put your figures in above.