Chinese Students Forced into Making Playstation 4s

It seems that in order to ship enough PS4s to keep up with demand Sony's manufacturing partner - the infamous Foxconn - is using some very dubious labour 'incentives' for some unexpected workers.

As yet Sony's not commented itself on its partner's employment strategy of making students who are actually supposed to be interning are being forced onto the manufacturing lines on pain of academic failure.

"Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily, thousands of students from an IT engineering program at the Xi’an Institute of Technology are being forced to work at Foxconn’s Yantai plant assembling the Sony Playstation 4. Students have been told if they refuse to participate, they lose six course credits, which effectively means they will not be able to graduate," reports GamesAsia.

In one example, one student, who "majored in finance and accounting but has been assigned to a job that entails glueing together parts of Sony’s Playstation 4. Another was assigned to a job that entails peeling of the PS4′s protective plastic and putting stickers on it. Still another, a computer science major, puts the PS4′s various cords and the instruction manual into the console’s box. Moreover, students say that their working hours are exactly the same as regular workers. The only difference is that unlike the workers, the students aren’t being paid."

Foxconn has stated that people are not held hostage in its fabs but can leave at any time they want.