Hey, they're infinitely better than they were!

Didn't they get a zero last time because of the lack of information Greenpeace was able to track down? Looking at the detailed results of this survey, it looks like it's the same thing.

But maybe that's just biased ol' me.

I hate, hate, hate Greenpeace. Seriously, they give environmentalists a bad name.

Just thought I'd hijack the thread.

I thought Nintendo got 0s across the board because they didn't give Greenpeace information.

Granted, I personally wouldn't give the tree hugging hippie freaks at Greenpeace the time of day.

At least Nintendo stopped killing dolphins and eating pandas?

@dunetiger : apples are red:

Are you sure? I heard they got such a low score because they needed to use pandas in the production of their DS. Uncomfirmed rumor, though. I just heard it from my friend.

no they already used up their panda supplies, they moved on to blue whales. where do you think they got the coloring for the cobalt ds?

...Last year, Greenpeace had no information based on the website alone and rated Nintendo a zero. This year, they still seem to have no information, but scored things slightly differently based on the general statement that was already up as of last scoring.

Way to show the improvement, Greenpeace. Also, the research done was staggering.

so it's confirmed, Nintendo causes Global Warming.

i'll never buy anything from them again. in fact, i haven't bought any DS games in years. thanks to R4 ^__^

Greenpeace should be happy that Nintendo's assets are liquid. The moment they cash out, the entire Amazon forest will be gone...

Something tells me Miyamoto may want to watch out for buckets of acid being flung in his face.

@Captain Impulse: Who actually listens to Greenpeace? At this point, I'm pretty sure they only exist to keep people from embracing a more environmentally friendly lifestyle by making the sort of people who do seem reprehensible.

Like the Anti-smoking ads make not smoking seem so incredibly lame that smoking is the only course of action for those trying to seem hip.

I hear Nintendo is the sole cause of climate change. It's the money printing machines you see. They're these massive things that just cut down the Amazon rainforest and print the money at the same time.

Seriously, just because they don't flaunt it doesn't mean they don't do it.

I dunno though, is environmentalism big in Japan? Sony and Microsoft are big international companies in the spotlight, but Nintendo seems more Japan-based and quieter on the press front for the most part.

In a fight for stupidity who would win, Greenpeace or PeTA?

And they don't print money from wood anymore, these days it's a sort of plastic.

@Balius: What are your smoking ads? Ours here in Australia are more along the lines of 'Smoking makes your insides burn and melt'.

@Pezdispenser: Greenpeace, because PETA gave us that hilariously over the top anti-KFC Mario ripoff/parody game.

The study itself shows that Greenpeace had "NO INFORMATION" in every single one of the points.

So, they don't even know.

I hope the Microsoft figure takes into account the extra meterials and packaging needed for the three consoles each buyer has to have because of RROD... and how Nintendo's machines are built to last.

@Pezdispenser: If we're lucky, simultaneous annihilation. Throw in ELF for good measure, too.

@Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.:

Let's see, there's that one where the teenagers murder a rat and staple a sign onto its corpse, the one where the teenagers dump a bunch of garbage into a park, the one where they steal photos of stillborn children and use them to scare people away from Planned Parenthood, etc etc.

I think Micro$oft earned those two extra points on their score by skimping on Lost Odyssey's packaging in the US. Greenpeace must have been fucking thrilled they decided to use less plastic.

wow, that's handy to know. So next time I have a paper to write and one of my specimens doesn't have any data, I can just give it a score of Zero and compare it to all the others which did provide good data.

Seriously though, this is really quite misleading, It's not a guide to which company is greener, it's a guide to which company is best at publicising those portions of it's green policies which this report is interested in. Hell, some of the criteria are questionable to start with; If company X has a recycling policy where I have to ship an 80kg TV across the country for them to recycle it, is that really more efficient than taking it down the road to my council run recycling centre? There's also the fact that all Electronics are not created equal; many people change phones on an annual basis, I still have a working SNES. The existence of a strong aftermarket for gaming products means a gaming-only company like Nintendo or MS doesn't NEED a recyling policy in the same was as Nokia, whos products are obsolete before they're even bought.

It's also misleading to call this "a guide to greener electronics". Toxic chemicals and recycling are a SMALL part of how "green" a company is. What about their policies on sourcing chemicals which are not toxic but which have other environmental impacts (mining of iron ore for example)? Energy efficiency and low-power standby options? overall energy consumption of product? general product lifespan; MS would lose big time on this with the sheer number of replacements they have to make.

I'm not some Zealot, if Nintendo really did legitimately score a zero I'd accept it, but lack of evidence is not evidence of a problem. Lack of policies on PVC and BRFs could be damning, or could mean these materials are not used in the first place.

@Pezdispenser:

PETA would win, easy. They have a couple videos that compare beef factories to the holocaust.

Keep it classy, PETA.

Greenpeace is just fund-raising and/or trying to extort a big cash donation from Nintendo.

Who cares? The hot air that greenpeace spews would probably cause more damage than anything Nintendo has.

I used to be a member of Greenpeace.
I stopped because I didn't have any money, but results like this are the reason I never rejoined.

in fairness MS and nintendo do waste a lot of plastic etc with their packaging. is a dvd box really necessary to hold point cards? also look at the size of a ds cart compared to the box it comes in :s

The conversation between Nintendo and Greenpeace that led to this scoring went something like this...

Greenpeace: Fill in all these forms for us, so we can make a report on your environmental standards.
Nintendo: No. We're not giving that information to you (and our competitors).
Greenpeace: Pleeeeease. We won't use it against you. At least put some info up on your website to let consumers know about how they can use your products in an environmentally-friendly way.
Nintendo: Go away. We're too busy printing money. We don't even have enough time to expand Wii production, let alone deal with you guys.
Greenpeace: You'll be sorry.
Greenpeace Press Release: Nintendo are enviromental vandals! They must be doing all sorts of evil stuff because they won't tell us anything, and they refused to put information on their website when we asked them to!

Greenpeace.. smoking that Mary J since well.. they can't remember.

I can't stand Greenpeace either, but it's good to see the other commenters are bashing them rather than defending any deficiency in Nintendo's environmental policies. Still, I would prefer it if Nintendo did disclose its information; whether it and its wallet likes it or not, Nintendo does have some major responsibilities to fulfill.

Greenpeace strikes me as a very 'small picture' kind of group. They seem to insist that consoles are disposable consumer products that get tossed out on the hours. To them, there's this imaginary dumping ground of Wiis, 360s and PS3s right next to that dump where they buried the ET games. And simply by being out in the world, children, trees, small animals, and the rest of the ecosystem are dieing a cancerous death.

Why doesn't Greenpeace harass the game-makers who keep making games that no one will buy? That's a bigger waste of resources than the consoles! I'd like to see the asshats behind "Alvin and the Chipmunks" beaten to death for what they've done to the environment! Movie game tie-in bastards!

Not listening to Greenpeace...
@ChrowX: I agree, it's not like I'm going to buy a new Gamecube or DS every month and then throw it away when it starts to look ugly.

shame on you kotaku, you didn't skew the story to read:

360 improves most, as environmentally friendly device, with nintendo improving slightly more than sony, who didn't improve at all!

^^^^^now THAT would have been effective journalism.

@ChrowX:

If Greenpeace did that, then they'd have to admit that they themselves are the biggest cause of environmental damage in the world, thus destroying themselves in the process.

You, sir, are a genius.

I would think if greenpeace thought about it, the amount of fossil fuels burned transporting RRoD'd 360s would have sunk Microsoft's score below zero.

zing!

I dont like greenpeace very much but I hate this article more. It's so incredibly biased. Would any other oranisation creating such a comparison between the consoles get so much hate? True they totally deserve it but this is a current issue. I'm sure all comanies that make games are aware of cutting down on waste (it means more money after all) and I suppose that makes them 'tree huggers' too. Come on dudes, associating evironmental issues with hippies is so 30 years ago.

ohh for crying out loud. im for saving the enviroment but i dont think anyone is going to be recycling these systems soon. only recycling is selling them

Way to low-ball a company twice because your stoned lackeys can't do their own research. Stupid hippies.

I see Greenpeace is no smarter then they were months ago when we had a 150 post count topic on this news story. I'm glad to see most of the posters are and know this is just Greenpeace being typical Greenpeace.

@c00ler_dood:Thank you for your completely pointless show of bragging on what a L33T pirate you are. The banhammer will see you now.

Too bad that their "grade" isn´t based upon real facts, but if they have announced their manufacturing information and submitted to their avaliation. Nintendo has a low grade because they didn´t informed the Data to analisys.

So If I choose not to undergo a test in some university, they´ll give me a low grade? It´s not like Nintendo asked for approval, so why they undergo them into a test even so?

I can´t go out on the street and call all the women around me dirty because they didn´t were interested on letting me sniffing their necks and panties.

If nintendo were being good to the environment I'm going to guess that they would provide the data for this survey and wouldn't hide it for some easy good PR. Not sure why people are defending nintendo with the there is not enough info line, it makes no sense.

@Wyld: Again, I hate to show support for Greenpeace, but the issue is a tad more important than women sniffing. At this stage everyone bar bought-out 'scientists' representing oil companies and a few economy-worried governments have accepted that shit needs to change fast if we as a race want to keep this planet. To deny the effects of global warming is pretty much up there with denying the holocaust.

Personally, I feel such information about measures taken by companies to be 'green' should be made public by law, that way environmentalist companies groups aren't complete douches like Greenpeace could provide the analysis.

@Happykraken: Science the Greenpeace way: no data is useable as negative score!

Man I must use that in future publications when my models fail to complete due to errors in the code. It's science at its best really. "Since all models failed to complete, the harbour seal populations are doomed to die according to my calculations".

All greenpeace does is scanning the sites for environmental policies and apparently not daring to write anything is waaaaaaay worse that admitting to doing something wrong. "Based on a sample of 0 data points (or n = 0 as I'd prefer to say), we conclude that Nintendo is t3h evil!!!! with 0 degrees of freedom and a standard deviation of NaN"

You can't give someone a low score for not providing all the information you wanted. Well, you can, but it makes you a douche.

Nintendo should be forthright and release more information, even if they don't have to, but frankly, it's Greenpeace: I wouldn't want PR from them, even if it was glowing. They're all frightening extremists.

Maybe they should contract out another high school computer graphics class to make another Master Cheif/Kratos/Mario short about how the consoles are toxic.

@Spoiler Duck: it's not a survey about global warming or carbon use though; it's about a limited number of toxic chemicals and recycling policies. If it was about global warming, the survey would look into energy efficiency, overall power usage, low-power standby modes (regular standby uses a lot of power, but there are new systems that use minimal amounts), use of recycled materials in packaging, product life spans, failure rates (since every faulty product has to be shipped for repair/recycling, using up fuels, or scrapped), ACTUAL use of toxic chemicals in products.

Greenpeace have a lot of money, surely they can buy a wii and take it apart, trace the source of each component and check with the parts manufacturers for use of toxic chemicals, or even subject it to lab analysis. Nintendo only MAKE about 5 major electronic products (Wii, DS and a few accessories), it's not that big of a chore. But this survey isn't about ACTUAL impact as the publicity implies, it's about companies complying to the whims of an NGO in terms of their information. If this was plublicised as a "Measure of the availibility of information on recycling and chemical use by several electronics manufacturers" that would be well and good, but calling it a "Guide to Greener Electronics" is misleading at best.

Oh, people actually pay attention to Greenpeace?

This makes me like Nintendo even more; knowing that Greenpeace doesn't.

It doesnt matter if your NES is still working from a generation ago- a fuckton of toxic waste was produced in the manufacture of that nes or any other consumer product.

The problem with electrical goods is that they contain unfortunate chemical nasties. From sourcing, manufacture and disposal- these nasties permanently get into the food supply and water systems, causing things like, y'know, tumors, hideous birth defects, death. Yum.

I love nintendo, but i love cancer free me more. If there is an alternative to having a toxic waggle fest, then nintendo, and every other transnational company, should do it. Its not as if they dont have the imagination or money.

@Spoiler Duck: i agree with you, but i don't believe in global warming myself. i haven't seen any conclusive studies to link the ri