The news that one third of all XBox360s is a dud, raises the question: Could the US revival in consumer electronics fizzle out because of shitty manufacturing? The US owned the consumer electronics industry until the 1980s when the Japanese took it from them with colour TVs and VCRs which were of vastly superior quality, reliability and price to their US equivalents.
Apple and Microsoft have made a valiant effort to wrest back that lead with the iPod, iPhone, stunning looking MacBooks and, of course, Microsoft's Xbox games machines. Rupert Goodwins very kindly directed me to a blog about Microsoft's horrendous problems with the quality levels on the XBox 360.
Goodwins' blog is perceptive because it highlights the basic difference between US manufacturing methods and Japanese manufacturing methods:
