They meant PS2. Japan was worried the processor was powerful enough to control missiles and put restrictions on how many can be sold to a single person and banned certain countries.

Double precision cell chips were reserved for military, I think (or maybe also blade processors). So doing any serious physics on them was dead in the water - same with macs tbh

I said kerfuffle. I didn’t say ‘export’.

They were probably thinking of the PS2, which Japan did, in fact, temporarily restrict: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-apr-17-fi-20482...