CrystalShadow said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
"Metals"? Isn't everything pretty much plastic?
Electronics of any kind have issues with 'rare earth metals' which... Often come from africa, and sometimes even from countries fighting nasty wars...
It raises the same ethical concerns as 'blood diamonds' and the like, basically.
But it's not specific to game consoles. it's ALL electronics. (LCD displays/TV's are actually a bigger offender on average than most)
A game console will almost certainly contain copper, probably silver and gold. Maybe a few aluminium and steel parts, and lots of rare earth minerals, such as boron, lithium, beryllium, and so on...
All of which tend to mostly come from a handful of places, and are mined under dubious conditions...
I was under the impression that most rare earth metals come from China. Because they're "rare" (read: only found as trace amounts in other minerals) extracting them produces large amounts of radioactive waste - quite a messy business and not something western cultures want to do while they can outsource it to a less scrupulous country. For the record, rare earth metals are the lanthanides (you know the two rows on the periodic table that are cut off and stuck on the bottom? The lanthanides is the top row) and a few other elements near the bottom of the periodic table, such as yttrium, scandium and indium.
Steel will be used for the structure of the case and copper will be used for interconnects. Steel is pretty mundane but there's not a huge amount of copper left on the planet, so that might be sourced from somewhere unsavoury.
Within power electronics, nickel and titanium may be used. Of those two, I'd say nickel is less responsibly sourced, as it's less abundant than titanium, which is abundant but energy-intensive to extract.
Within microprocessors, boron and arsenic will be added to the silicon as impurities. Arsenic is a vile chemical, often taken from the hazardous waste of other extraction processes. Boron is comparatively nice but I don't know much about how it's sourced. Aluminium or, more likely, copper will be used for interconnects within the chip.
Gold may be used to plate connectors for its corrosion resistance. I couldn't tell you what would be in the disk laser - it could just be a silicon laser diode or it could be something more exotic, like a YAG laser (which contains the rare earth element yttrium). Depending on the motors, they may contain neodymium or samarium - two more lovely rare earth metals! LEDs may be made from III-V compounds, which would bring materials such as gallium, indium, phosphorus and nitrogen into the mix, all of which are non-trivial to source except nitrogen.
That's everything I can think of. Source: I have a masters (integrated masters & bachelors) in electronic engineering and am doing a PhD in electronics fabrication
OT: my first thought on seeing the thread - "people are feeling sorry for Nintendo and Sony?". Business is business and they're going to have to roll with the punches.
Casual Shinji said:
Nintendo fans don't give a shit about Nintendo itself, they just don't want the next Zelda to get cancelled due to financial trouble. Same with Sony fans.
I'm a Nintendo fan and, personally, I'm seriously rooting for Nintendo as company that focuses on making games and putting the play experience before all else - a company that polishes its games extensively and will delay them until they're good and done, Christmas release be damned. In my thoroughly biased opinion, I think this is something more companies should do so yes, I do give a shit about Nintendo itself.
