Coffee Talk #443: Paying For an American Made Console

Last night my friend Paul and I were talking about Jon Stewart’s hilarious and sad rant about Apple and Foxconn. It got us thinking about the possibility of American-made consoles. Initially I was dreaming about Microsoft, being an American company and all, pricing the next Xbox a little higher than the competition…

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Last night my friend Paul and I were talking about Jon Stewart’s hilarious and sad rant about Apple and Foxconn. It got us thinking about the possibility of American-made consoles. Initially I was dreaming about Microsoft, being an American company and all, pricing the next Xbox a little higher than the competition but using American factories to assemble it. Paul thought that was too unrealistic, so he proposed Microsoft releasing two versions of the Xbox 720 (or whatever it will be called): one made in America and one made in China/Mexico/insert-cheap-labor-country-here. That’s when things got more interesting.

It’s still unrealistic given how publicly-traded companies work, but let’s play this game for a bit. Would you pay extra for an American-made videogame-console? How much extra, if anything, would you pay for a console that supports American factory workers? It’s totally cool if your answer is $0; I’m sure that most U.S. Americans don’t care, but I’m curious to see if some of you do and how much more you’d be willing to spend. Kindly vote in the poll and expand on your answer in the comments section.

[poll id=”143″]

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

19 thoughts on “Coffee Talk #443: Paying For an American Made Console”

  1. Unfortunately, nothing is really "made in America" anymore. Yes, there are many things assembled in America, but production of a good from raw material to finished product is how I define "made" and I can't think of anything that is truly mass produced and made in America. Maybe coal production?

    Oh, and even if you do mass produce something here from scratch, the chances are that the machinery involved in that production comes from China or elsewhere.

    -M

  3. I'd pay $50 more tops. Perhaps the costs associated with licensing and patents should be adjusted instead of hardware quality to create an acceptable margin?

    Then again I'd have to think hard what my ceiling is on price. I don't expect nor believe that the new consoles will wow anyone with their specs and feature sets. I'm definitely thinking $350 is my limit.

  4. I don't know. Watching the piece and actually seeing the working conditions at Foxconn made me feel pretty disgusting for owning a bunch of the stuff that's made there. Makes you wonder how American companies are supposed to compete with Chinese companies where their employees are on constant suicide watch.

      1. Every time I hear a Republican say that "regulation stifles business," I'll remember the suicide nets at Foxconn. Maybe an extra 20% isn't that bad a thing if people aren't jumping off of ledges.

  5. I would love to say $100, but I had to go with $50 because I can't pay more for something with extra money I don't have. American factories cost so much money to the point where (obviously) those items have to be marked up in price to account for production costs, but even the people who work in factories have a hard time paying extra for american made items that cost more. I don't like the idea of supporting a place like Foxcon, but none of us really want the price of the products coming out of there to increase.

  6. I voted for $50. I'm pro not having to send my xbox out of country to get rid of rrod or HDD issues.

  7. Hahahahaha! Yeah, no. I don't care where it's made, it better not cost more than anywhere else.

  9. I voted $50, at the end of the day it depends on quality, not where it's made. I have had 3 xboxs and luckily for me none rrod'd. One was modded and got banned from xbl, I traded one for a bong, and then I purchased the slimbox.

      1. Honestly I can't say. I may have products made by children in my home now. That may sound ignorant but it's the truth.

      1. I read the article just now.

        Also, I had to respond to some jerk-off who called me and my company "evil" in the comments section.

        I'd like that guy (or girl or llama) to tell me that to my face.

        -M

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