In ye old'n times we would leave the console on as a stop-gap way to save the game between in-game save opportunities. Because ye old'n times game design philosophy believed that the added difficulty of crazily separated save points was "fun".

In modern times I sleep the hardware if I expect to be back within <24 hrs, and power off if I expect to be longer.

(Thank god for saving memory states in emulators!!! Elsewise I probably wouldn't play retro games at all.)

I always turn everything off including my pc. I was kind of surprised the other day some of the people I talk to on discord never shut down their machines or at least put them in hibernation

It depended.

For classic consoles, if I was in the middle of a game I couldn't save and had to do something else or sleep, I would leave the console on but the TV off. Outside of that though, I just kept it off unless I was actively playing a game on it.

Modern consoles I keep in standby mode usually. Much nicer for the console to do its updates when I am not using it so that I dont have to wait when I have some free time to play.

Back when games did not have saves I would leave a system on while trying to beat the game. But only maybe during dinner, or maybe overnight.

The first time my sister used my SEGA Genesis she only turned off the TV. The Genesis ended up being left on for an extended weekend. I do not know if that caused it or not, but shortly after that the power supply died.

I shut mine down when I’m done for the day/night. Personally, I see no reason to leave a console on overnight/forever. Isn’t this why save states exist?

Haven’t owned a cartridge system since I lived under parents and yeah, it was the same for me, turn it off when you’re done using it because it’ll drive the power bill up and money doesn’t grow on trees and all that. I can’t imagine systems like the SNES or N64 really drew that much power though? But as a tree hugger and an engineer, I tend to avoid any level of waste. I doubt cartridges suffer from any significant wear from being left on, since they’re just solid state electronics.

Anything with a fan gets immediately turned off when my session ends because I’m hyper sensitive to fan noise (not sure if this is an autism thing?)

I have left some older systems on for extended periods a few times because I was either somewhere I couldn't save and didn't want to lose a bunch of progress, or games that didn't have save capabilities and I had to stop playing for some reason. Other than that, they always were and still do get turned off.

I think i left my Nintendo wii on for a month on a menu screen or something lol. It was early in a save file so I was still in the tutorial and had 800 hours lol.

I always turned them off, unless I was just going to eat dinner and couldn't save. The lasers for old systems like the PS2 and Sega Saturn have a longevity, and will wear out over time. I'd rather not speed that up since I plan on keeping them around. I was also scolded for wasting electricity growing up, so that is burned into my habits as well.

The only thing that ever gets left on, are my current gen consoles in standby mode when I'm not using them. OR if I forget steam is running and MCC is running the BG

I always turn them off. But few months ago my PC Engine stayed on for a week. I forgot to turn it off. A little hot but no issue at all.

Only in standby so it can do updates in the background. The PS5 eats up way too much power to just leave it running.

The one I actually use? Yes. Technically.

PS5 has a standby mode so it can still update itself and apps while "off." But that's not really OFF off.

My other consoles (SNES, Dreamcast, OG Xbox, and PS2) are in a closet, unused. They wouldn't be on if I did use them anyway. The main reason I don't use them is because they all use composite video/audio connections and my TV doesn't have those inputs :/