Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

U.S., Japan Ask Sony To Not Outsource PS2 To Taiwan

Posted by timothy on from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

Payp points to this Digitimes story which says: "Japanese and U.S. governments have asked Sony to stop outsourcing Playstation 2 manufacturing to 2 Taiwanese companies, Asustek and Acer, in fear that they would do the manufacturing in factories in China, which would give the Chinese government opportunies to gain access to the DVD techonology. (I thought some DVD players are already manufactured in China.) Sony originally planned to use the Taiwanese companies to manufacture PS2 to prepare for Microsoft XBox's arrival, the manufacturing of which is also outsourced to some Taiwanese companies."

3 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Protecting DVD Tech my arse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    There are tons of articles all over the place on the web DVD technology - I doubt thats what they are trying to protect. What I think they really fear is access to the PS2's emotion chip technology, which the Japanese said is powerful enough to control weapons such as guided missles.

    Cheap ruse, try again.

  2. Manufacturing vs assembly -- BIG DIFFERENCE by Ryu2 · · Score: 5
    Most of the "manufacturing" going on in China and Taiwan is actually ASSEMBLY of components into a final product, not actual MANUFATURE of components themselves (eg, semiconductors or DVD readers), which themselves come from US or Japan.

    Perhaps if Sony wanted China/Taiwan to actually fab the chips, then there might be danger of intellectual property being stolen.

    To assemble stuff requires far less advanced technology (soldering, etc) than actually making the raw components. So, in order to get any useful technology, the Chinese would have to take the chip apart or use other methods of reverse engineering, and I don't see how not letting China/Taiwan handle the assembly would stop this anyways.

    --
    There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
  3. What am I missing here? by Jennifer+E.+Elaan · · Score: 5
    I'm just wondering what I'm missing. Is this the "Acer" that makes DVD-ROM drives? I'm confused.

    And Asus? Huh? They're not worried about the dangers of K7 motherboards, but an MPEG-2 decoder chip is dangerous? But an Athlon can merrily perform all the same functions, if not a bit more!

    I think these "sources" sound like a couple teenage kids with a little too much [favorite drug here] on their brains.

    Wouldn't it be more dangerous if China got ahold of just one or two well-trained EE's from around here?

    -- Blore's Razor:
    --

    Hardware, software, and blinking lights!