Conservative politicians and commentators in the U.S. are complaining that Xbox game consoles are "waking up" (opens in new tab) following the Xbox Series X/S machine update announced earlier this month.

This particular descent into partisan madness began on January 11, when Microsoft announced that the Xbox would be "the first gaming console to offer carbon-conscious game downloads and updates." Simply put, the Xbox console will be able to schedule updates to coincide with times when the power grid is using lower-carbon power sources.

This is a sensible idea, and according to Microsoft, this new setting will reduce power usage by up to a factor of 20 compared to normal sleep mode.

Not surprisingly, right-wing commentators and their political supporters did not stop to view this update as the next great violation of freedom and a new front in the culture wars, following equally silly upset causes like M&Ms (opens in new tab) and gas stoves (opens in new tab) did not stop us from seeing it as such. Republican Senator Ted Cruz retweeted an article about the update posted on the right-wing site Blaze News (opens in new tab), writing, "First they went after gas stoves, then coffee, and now Xbox."

The tweet was misleading enough that Twitter added "context" underneath it.

The conservative youth group Young America's Foundation shared the same article, stating, "Lol now the woke brigade is after videogames all in the name of climate change."

Talk show host John Ziegler also felt compelled to comment, saying, "Maybe now some young people will finally realize the real-world negative effects of #climate fraud?" He tweeted.

Republican Congressman Troy Nehls was perhaps the most brandish of the bunch, equating Xbox consoles with guns.

The leading conservative talk show Fox and Friends also moved away from lamenting the loss of the traditional sexy candy-coated peanuts, complaining that Microsoft was "going after the kids." [Fox Across America host Jimmy Failla said, "They're trying to get kids into climate change politics early. Get them interested in climate change now."

Climate awareness is not, in my opinion, the worst thing to sprout in children, but Failla predictably overlooked the fact that the majority of gamers are, in fact, adults; as Blaze reports, the update is "a way to fight climate change and to get gamers to make them turn off their Xbox consoles," but in fact, that's not the case at all. According to Microsoft, the update became the default setting for newly set up consoles, but it "will not affect performance, game play, or the console receiving system, game, or app updates overnight. And if you don't want to use it, that's fine too: "You can always adjust the settings and choose what works best for you.

But even if you don't care about climate change (which, for the record, is a very real thing), there are simple, practical reasons to accept this update. A few years ago, I pointed out that PC games consume a lot of power (open in new tab), and that applies to gaming consoles as well. Power is not free, so reducing its use will save money. Even the angriest anti-Walkman would not find fault with this point.

Microsoft declined to comment on the backlash against the update.