How will British standby laws affect consoles? [update 1]

The British government recently set plans in motion to outlaw the standby feature on all technology, citing that eight percent of all their energy consumption comes from the feature. While Joystiq readers are known to be environmentalists and the law does not target consoles specifically, what if the bill did limit our console's standby options:

• As Club Skill pointed out, the Wii's Connect24 would not be always connected to download new content, forcing Nintendo to consider new names for its internet service (Wii Connect18 ConnectFour CanConnect eh, forget it). Honestly, though, with today's broadband speeds, Nintendo could probably max our your Wii flash drive in minutes, so you can just check for "goodies" when you wake up and turn your console on.
  
• All next-generation consoles and the PlayStation 2 would need minor redesigns. Would the currently available PS2 / Xbox 360 models lose all trade-in value? Will we be forced to recall all our current consoles?
  
• Hopefully, the Wii and PS3 will not get delayed.
• If I put my Nintendo DS on standby (i.e. closing the cover), will the Karma Police arrest me?
• Windows and Macs lose standby mode ... not exactly game-related, but it is still annoying.

Whether or not this law will cause unforeseen consequences, such as consumers leaving their electronics running at full power constantly, is beyond our scope. At least we won't have to worry about it just yet.

[Image credit]

[update 1: We misread the Times piece under the mindset of the Game Politics interpretation -- which included consoles as part of the British standby ban. Sorry for the confusion; minor changes were made the opening and closing paragraphs, but the bullet points seem a lot more appropriate as satire than sarcastic soothsaying.]