An article surfaced today letting us know that buying a PS2 is the equivalent of buying a blood diamond. That’s right Sony’s production of the PS2 actually was causing conflicts and actually killing people in the Congo.
At the center of the conflict is the unrefined metallic ore, coltan. After processing, coltan turns into a powder called tantalum, which is used extensively in a wealth of western electronic devices including cell phones, computers and, of course, game consoles.
Allegedly, the demand for coltan prompted Rwandan military groups and western mining companies to plunder hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the rare metal, often by forcing prisoners-of-war and even children to work in the country’s coltan mines.
But you may ask how does this involve Sony and their best selling PS2? Apparently the increased demand of PS2’s during its original launch lead to a higher demand of electronics which also meant a higher demand of the ore.
According to Toward Freedom, during the 2000 launch of the PS2, the electronics giant was having trouble meeting consumer demand. To pump out more units, Sony required a significant increase in the production of electric capacitors, which are primarily made with tantalum. This helped drive the world price of the powder from $49/pound to a whopping $275/pound, resulting in the frenzied scouring of the Congolese hills known for being ripe with coltan.
Sony has since sworn off using tantalum acquired from the Congo, claiming that current builds of the PS2, PSP and PS3 consoles are sourced from a variety of mines in several different countries.
Seeing as the PS2 is the best-selling video game console of all-time and has sold over 140 million units that is a lot of ore and bad news for the people of the Congo. Who knew that even purchasing a video game console had effects on other nations world wide. One thing this article leaves out though are all the other kinds of electronics that are made using this ore, Sony is not the only one that uses this, where are the names of the PC manufacturers or tons of other electornics companies that also use this ore to make their goods? Seems that SOny is caught in a saucy one, but probably is just being used as a scape goat because of their large profile name and status.
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Write a Comment»They’re assuming that getting the ore from other countries solves the problem? With the higher demand, wouldn’t the less scrupulous countries just buy it from the Congo at a discounted rate, and then resell to the console makers?
They’re assuming that getting the ore from other countries solves the problem? With the higher demand, wouldn’t the less scrupulous companies just buy it from the Congo at a discounted rate, and then resell to the console makers?
LOL, sorry, double post (had a typo, put countries instead of companies)
Yeha somehting tells me that this hasnt stopped and that Sony isnt the only one with their hand in the cookie jar. Nintendo and MS are probably in the same boat.
Not to mention all the HDTV and PC part manufacturers.
Sony looks liek the villain but are being used to promote an agenda
But then again, Sony makes computers and HDTVs and all kinds of other electronics, so they very well could be bigtime perpetrators here. (just baseless speculation though)
This is a bullshit article.
Internet media sensationalism at it’s lowest.
If people actually researched properly they would find that the ore’s main suppliers are the US and Canada, not Africa which holds about 1% of the global supply.
The conflicts in the Congo revolve around much more serious matters of human rights violations, religious and political conflict and the struggle of an impoverished people.
Now watch Greenpace use this to bash video game consoles even more. Greenpace=GAY.
Greenpeace*