Households with games consoles face £16.44 charges from July | Personal Finance | Finance

Game consoles would cost households in the UK around £16 a year under the price cap that will come into effect on July 1.

People in England, Wales, and Scotland on a standard variable tariff for their home energy, and who pay for their electricity via Direct Debit, will soon pay 26.11p per kilowatt hour (kWh) on average after the scheduled change to the price cap. That’s a 13% increase on the previous price cap, with Ofgem saying the main cause of the rise is the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. That means your electricity bills will soon be higher. Since game consoles hit the mass market in the 1970s, gaming has become a multi-billion-pound industry and a popular form of entertainment across demographics in the UK. Die-hard gamers often opt for expensive gaming PCs with features built to their specifications, but consoles don’t come cheap either, with models ranging from around £240 for the original Nintendo Switch console up to £730 for the PlayStation 5 Pro.

But given how widely they’re used, and how much some people play them, it’s also worth factoring in how they can affect your energy bill.

Consumer research for Q4 2024, published early last year by digital intelligence platform MIDiA, found that console gamers spend an average of 10 hours per week gaming. That’s the equivalent of 1 hour and 26 minutes per day.

The figure is based on responses from various countries, including the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, South Korea, and Brazil.

And though habits will differ between nations, it gives us a rough idea of how much people are playing, and with that, we can work out roughly how much consoles would add to electricity bills over the course of a year under the current cap.

Citizens Advice’s cost calculator reveals that, based on that level of usage, your games console might add £16.44 per year for that playtime under the new cap. That’s the equivalent of 4p per day, 31p per week, or £1.37 per month.

However, that takes into account power being pulled when the console is in active use, but it will cost more if they’re on standby, charging your controller, for example.

The estimate is for England, Scotland, and Wales, and Citizens Advice notes that it’s calculated using “the rate you pay for electricity or the national average rate and the amount of electricity each appliance uses”.

However, actual usage will depend on how much you use your console, and it will vary between devices.

Additionally, while the estimates give you an illustrative sense of the costs the cap represents over a longer period, the maximum limit on unit rates and standard charges is reviewed by the regulator every three months and doesn’t remain in place for a full year.