I use solar energy to power my systems and carrier pigeons to deliver internet. So suck that environmentalists!

I know it is hard for people on the internet to attain information (hint: it is two links away).

"Assumptions

A number of assumptions are used in the study (as described below).

General Assumptions

Active power consumption of PS3 will be the same for downloaded and BD gameplay. Game data can be read from the spinning BD and often is, at least partially, installed from BD to the hard disk. Online games are downloaded to, and then played from, the spinning hard disk. If games were to be played 100% from the BD drive (versus hard disk in the download scenario), then the differential power use of these hardware components would need to be considered. Even in a possible extreme case, for example, if the console hard disk used 3 watts (W) less power than the BD drive, this would only reduce carbon emissions for the download scenario by 1%, which is not substantial enough to affect the results of the study.

Blu-Ray Assumptions

• Carbon emissions arising from the electronic transfer of one master copy of each game from the studio for production are negligible, compared to the number of units of each game produced.
• negligible, compared to the number of units of each game produced.
• Trucks are unlikely to be fully utilized on return journeys. It is assumed therefore that half of all returning transport will be empty (SCEE 2013).
• Transport distance from Austria to the UK is all by road (representing an extreme case for continental Europe).
• Wooden pallets and shipping boxes used for BD distribution will not be reused or recycled by retailers.3
• Consumers will buy discs from retail outlets along with only nine other items. In practice, they may purchase a single game (subsequent to the launch of a new game) or many more items (such as during a trip to a supermarket) in which case emissions are allocated across all of the purchases. There appears to be little reliable data on average numbers of items purchased by consumers during any shopping trip, and types of retail outlets differ widely. Ten items are assumed here and tested using sensitivity analysis below (assuming a minimum of one item and a maximum of 100 items).
• Shoppers will travel by car to retail outlets.

Download Assumptions

• Browsing the online store for a downloadable game will be at a data rate of 50 kilobytes per minute over 10 minutes (based on checks conducted browsing online retail websites by one of the authors).
• Consumers turn off their television (which is normally on when the console is in gameplay mode) while downloading a game.
• Games are usually downloaded in the background while the console is used primarily for other purposes. Because average on-time for each PS3 is 1.9 hours per day (Webb et al. 2013), files taking longer than this to download, on average, will result in consoles being left on until complete.
• Average distance from household to incineration or landfill is 50 kilometers (km; to reflect that landfill or incineration facilities usually are commissioned to serve local municipal geographies, such as county councils in the UK).
• To calculate game usage by first users (see Data Collection below), it is assumed that one half of disc games are reused once, that average gameplay time is representative of both first and subsequent use (reuse), and that, in 2010, 95% of games were distributed by disc (which are reasonable assumptions based on discussions with industry experts).

Sensitivities to uncertainties for a number of these assumptions are analyzed in the results below."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.12181/fullhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.12181/full

Makes me wonder if internet porn caused an increase in tissue sales thus more trees are being cut..

Yeah, waaaaay too many baseless assumptions made by the "researchers" or whatever they claim to be. The entire article is bonkers.

You wanted them to include your "baseless assumptions" and when they have you are still not content.

I am speaking on their other assumptions, such as assuming that the drives take the same exact power (bullshit) or that transportation is neglegible (bullshit). Also, where is the assumptions for the labor and power needed to mine the materials to manufacture a BD? That kind of stuff is important, and convinently left out of the article. Also, what about games that must be transported overseas by plane or ship? There are so many things that the article ignores with its "assumptions".

You still continue to assume what the article says as you clearly have not read a word in it:

"Best estimate:

Blu-ray discs     Games development     0.14kg CO2-eq)     0.7% of total  

  Raw materials production and transport     0.27kg CO2-eq)     1.3 % of total  

  Manufacturing      0.01 kg CO2-eq)     0.0% of total  

  Distribution      0.28kg CO2-eq)      1.3% of total  

  Retail      0.08 kg CO2-eq)     0.4% of total  

  Transport home      0.43 kg CO2-eq)     2.1% of total  

  Gameplay (use)      19.48 kg CO2-eq)     93.6% of total  

  Disposal      0.13 kg CO2-eq)     0.6% of total  

  Total      20.82 kg CO2-eq)     100.0% of total  

  Total excluding gameplay and development      1.20 kg CO2-eq)     5.7%of total"   (This figure says that gameplay and development is 94.3% of the carbon footprint)

If digital purchases had been a thing back in the Atari days, there probably wouldn't be an underground landfill full of unsold E.T. cartridges in New Mexico.

Wii U as well.

That is an interesting comparison. I for one wouldn't have even thought it was close, but I think most of us don't think about how much power we use or how when companies are shipping things they tend to try and be very efficient with how much they move at one from manufacturing to distribution centers and to stores.