Game over for environmental unfriendliness, Greenpeace says

Of course, they don't mean the Playstation 3 is ejecting carbon into the atmosphere (even though buying one such console costs about the same as putting a down payment on a car).

The issue, rather, is with the amount of pollutant materials used in the manufacture of each of the big three consoles, their energy efficiency (or lack thereof), and only half-complete plans to retake older electronics from consumers.

Greenpeace's report seems a little drastic at first, slamming Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo left and right. The former two are criticized for their systems' massive power consumption and vague plans to remove hazardous materials from their consoles, and Nintendo is taken to task for not having any such plans at all.

Fair enough. Greenpeace suggests in its report that all three could be acting much quicker to replace materials like PVC (polyvinyl chloride), which many consider dangerous to the environment.

It is when Greenpeace starts to criticize the manufacturers for their lacking take-back plans that I find the report a little narrow-minded, though. The environmentalist group points out Sony's recycling program is decent, and says the other two have some catching up to do.

Greenpeace is partly right, of course. It doesn't demonstrate much corporate responsibility on the part of Nintendo and Microsoft not to accept any of their old hardware back, particularly considering that technological advances mean there is less and less reason to hold on to your old consoles every generation. In other words, the latest three consoles are all, in industry lingo, backwards-compatible, at least to a certain degree.

So your X-BOX 360 can allow you to play all the classic hits from the first X-BOX, which means you don't really have a reason to keep it at home.

However, there is one thing Greenpeace fails to keep account of in their report. Many gamers believe in selling their older products, whether online or via retailers. A lot of specialty gaming stores, such as Electronic Boutique, offer some sort of "trade in" program to consumers. You can walk up to their counters and give them this many of your old games, for example, for a new one. You can also easily sell them your old console, although the money you get in return is usually disadvantageous to you in comparison to selling it online.

This used game market is pretty big. The size of used game shelves in retail stores can give you an idea, never mind all the trading that goes on in cyberspace.

Of course, this still doesn't give Nintendo or Microsoft a blank cheque. How hard could it possibly be to set up a recycling program these days? Nintendo, with their trigger-happy approach to bombarding Wii owners with peripherals, should seriously consider setting one up by the time the next generation rolls around. My Wii is surrounded by eight controllers, steering wheel-shaped plastic shells, and a guitar shell. That's not even considering what will be added to all this if I ever decide to give in to Rock Band (which requires at least another guitar, a drum set and a microphone to fully enjoy) or the upcoming WiiSpeak microphone for online chatting, etc.

Though factually correct, Greenpeace's report may have failed to take note of the larger context in which games are sold, traded, re-bought, etc.

On the other hand, the knee-jerk reaction that many in the enthusiast gaming press demonstrated to the report just goes to show juvenile the industry and some of its many fans and proponents still are. Yes, gamers, our hobby is now one of the most lucrative and profitable in the world. That inevitably means we'll get more and more attention from concerned citizens' groups. If we learn to listen to constructive criticism rather than think the world is out to get us, maybe we can all learn to get somewhere together.