Sony’s PS4 is made with the blood and tears of unpaid blackmailed student laborers
This November, the PS4 will herald the eighth generation of console gaming, bringing more hardware horsepower to living room gamers than ever before. Unfortunately, a new report suggests that all that horsepower is the result of the toil of unpaid student interns.
Making matters worse, these unpaid student interns were forced to work overtime in order to help Foxconn meet the production quotas Sony set for its new console. According to Chinese newspaper Oriental Daily, thousands of students from the Xi’an Institute of Technology’s IT engineering program were “offered†an unpaid internship at Foxconn’s Yantai plant. However, rather than offered as an option, the students were told that if they did not accept the position, they would lose six course credits, which in turn would prevent them from graduating. So, if reports are to be believed, students are being forced to assemble the PS4 — working overtime and without pay — or else they won’t graduate school.
The nefarious practices don’t stop at course credit blackmail and long, arduous hours without wages; students stuck in the program have reported that they have been forced into positions that have nothing to do with their education, such as in the shipping department. Other reports detail far worse fates, such as packing the console’s retail box, or putting stickers on the PS4.
![[Image: iheartfoxconn-640x353.jpg]](http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/iheartfoxconn-640x353.jpg)
This November, the PS4 will herald the eighth generation of console gaming, bringing more hardware horsepower to living room gamers than ever before. Unfortunately, a new report suggests that all that horsepower is the result of the toil of unpaid student interns.
Making matters worse, these unpaid student interns were forced to work overtime in order to help Foxconn meet the production quotas Sony set for its new console. According to Chinese newspaper Oriental Daily, thousands of students from the Xi’an Institute of Technology’s IT engineering program were “offered†an unpaid internship at Foxconn’s Yantai plant. However, rather than offered as an option, the students were told that if they did not accept the position, they would lose six course credits, which in turn would prevent them from graduating. So, if reports are to be believed, students are being forced to assemble the PS4 — working overtime and without pay — or else they won’t graduate school.
The nefarious practices don’t stop at course credit blackmail and long, arduous hours without wages; students stuck in the program have reported that they have been forced into positions that have nothing to do with their education, such as in the shipping department. Other reports detail far worse fates, such as packing the console’s retail box, or putting stickers on the PS4.
