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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.