The actual hardware design is done by their own engineers, so why do they have to outsource the actual hardware manufacturing?
Because to do it like how you suggest would bankrupt the company.
Maybe you don't really want Nintendo to go bankrupt or for the Foxconn workers to starve to death, but that's the effect that would happen if what you want were actually carried out.
Yes it's cheaper to send everything to China, but most of those workers are treated very poorly.
A poor job is better than none at all.
Would you at least ensure there is some alternative in place for those workers before you pulled the rug out from underneath them?
Well none of these problems would happen if the sweatshops didn't exist.
If sweatshops didn't exist what jobs would these people have? In a perfect world everyone could have a cushy high paying union job, but how could that be possible? In places like Africa people are literally starving to death because they have no job at all period. I'm sure they would love to have something like Foxconn because even something terrible is better than nothing.
If Chinese factory workers unionized, you know what would happen? The jobs would be outsourced from there to some other 3rd world country, such as Africa and the Chinese would be unemployed. People in Africa would benefit if the factories moved in, but China would be where we're at right now with no manufacturing jobs because they've all been outsourced to where the labor was cheaper.
You don't see auto companies outsourcing their manufacturing to 3rd world countries.
Brandogg explained that. The shipping costs for 10 million cars weighing 2+ tons a piece would be horrendous and would more than cancel out any savings from the cheaper labor. Not to mention that a lot of the manufacturing these days is robotic anyway, and you don't have to pay robots a wage.