If you're planning this holiday season (perhaps even today) to become one of the tens of millions of people in the U.S. to buy a video game system, you may want to consider how the purchase of a Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation or Microsoft Xbox will impact your carbon footprint (or, at very least, your electric bill).

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a New York-based environmental organization, in a new report says that video game systems are huge energy wasters, mostly because people (read: kids) tend to leave them on even when they're not using them.