I'm pretty certain Sony was running those factories and imposing their strict quality control on the products. They weren't slapping the Sony label on the lowest bidding outsourced manufacture of the week, which is the current norm for a lot of goods. Companies tend to view a brand as just that, a brand, consisting of a name, logo and past reputation, which is frequently applied to products made by who knows who, some of which may be great but who knows?

I never claimed they ONLY made them in Japan. Notice though that virtually all of those locations are in first-world nations with relatively high standards of living, health and safety regulations, environmental regulations, etc placing them on a level playing field. I would still argue though that the stuff they made in Japan in the 70s-80s was the best quality stuff they ever made. There was a good reason that Sun, SGI and Apple all used Sony-made monitors with their high end stuff. The reason most manufacturing has moved to China these days is because it's cheap, period. Lower cost of living, fewer regulations, workers can be paid less, worked harder, under poorer conditions, because it's cheaper, and in some (not all, but some) cases you get what you pay for. Lack of regulation, poor quality control, and the eternal quest for cheaper and cheaper goods is the reason we have ended up with so many incidents with high levels of lead and other contaminants in toys and other goods, pet food, etc.