The official Walmart Check Out blog has an interesting story today about a "green gaming summit" they've just concluded, which featured officials from Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Electronic Arts, and Activision, where they discussed game console power consumption and the wasteful use of plastics in packaging. Did you know that there were around 101 Million games sold in plastic cases last year, which translates into green house gas emissions equal to over 9,000 cars? Apparently we're killing the planet, and Walmart had some helpful suggestions on how to stop our vile murder spree. Among them, using cardboard for packaging instead of plastic, working with console manufacturers to bring down power consumption, and this little gem:

Developing software and hardware that allows us to save the game so we do not have to leave it on would allow us to turn it off during a meal break or overnight without loosing our place. Additionally, come clever programming would allow the console to go into a lower power, standby mode when not in use.

Holy shit that's brilliant! If only every game that's come out over the past 12 years had had some sort of save function...why just think about what a better place the world would be! We'd be able to leave our games and come back to them, and power outages would no longer cause us to lose hours and hours of progress. Seriously Walmart, you're starting a revolution here.

I hereby urge all game developers to work some kind of save function into their games, if not for us, then for our planet. And while I'm at it, if the console makers could create some sort of screen dimmer for their systems in case we leave the game alone for while, that would be amazing too.

As a way of saying thanks to Walmart for this great revelation, I hereby offer an idea I've been kicking around. What if we had giant, soulless stores filled with every kind of merchandise available to man, where people could go at all hours of the day and night to satiate their every shopping need? It would be completely awesome! We could force people out of their homes to make room for the stores, and what the hell, even prop up a near-dead elderly person out in front, dress them in a blue vest and call them a greeter!

No no, don't thank me. You helped our industry save the planet. It's the least I could do.

Green Gaming? YUP! [Walmart Check Out Blog - Thanks Uncle Bob!]