So it looks like video games waste more than just time. (disclaimer: I love few things more than wasting time on video games).

Today, the Natural Resources Defense Council issued a report saying video games nationwide consume more than $1 billion worth of electricity each year while sitting idle. That’s enough electricity to power up every home in San Diego for a year, they say.

What’s interesting is what the council’s reviewers found when they compared power consumption of game consoles that were active, idle or turned off. They found that  games used essentially the same amount of power while being played as they do while not being played. The key to cutting out the waste is using a system’s power management feature, or simply turning it off when not in use.

“If you leave your Xbox 360 or Sony Play Station 3 on all the time, you can cut your electric bill by as much as $100 a year simply by turning it off when you are finished playing,” said NRDC Senior Scientist Noah Horowitz.

The report also takes a look at several popular game systems, analyzing them based on power consumption. Something to think about when you start working on that Christmas shopping list.

• Nintendo Wii
  Using an average of just 16 watts in Active mode, the Wii is the juice
  sipper of the group. Attracting buyers with novel, interactive game play
  rather than power hungry, high-end graphics, the Wii uses far less
  power to operate than its competitors.
• Microsoft Xbox 360
  Consuming an average of 119 watts in Active mode, the Xbox 360 sits
  in the middle of this widely spaced field. The Xbox does offer users a
  built-in auto power-down option, but the feature is disabled by default
  and buried deep in the system menu.
• Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3)
  Burning through an average of 150 watts in Active mode, the Sony PS3
  draws the highest amount of power of the video game consoles on the
  market in 2007. In October 2008 Sony introduced a power management
  feature via online update, but it too is disabled by default.