Japan was worried about running afoul of these same laws and banned sales of the PS2 in certain countries, I think the same countries we weren't allowed to share advanced crypto with.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/20-years-later-how-concerns-about... | https://web.archive.org/web/20250619030114/https://www.pcmag...

> All that power caught the eye of Japan’s Trade Ministry. In April 2000, they issued an edict[0]: if Sony wanted to ship the PS2 abroad, they would need to request a special permit. The law as written required any exporter who wished to ship hardware with potential military applications worth more than $472 outside the country to obtain permission from the government or face up to five years in prison.

> With a sticker price of $376, that meant any kind of bulk PS2 shipments would run afoul of the law. If the company couldn’t convince their government otherwise, American gamers wouldn’t have a chance to play Ridge Racer V or TimeSplitters on launch day.

> Sony applied for a special export permit to get its new console to the rest of the world, but a few countries were blacklisted. Libya, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were considered potentially likely to use the console for nefarious purposes. Here in the United States, we got the hardware on October 26, as planned.

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/716237.stm | https://web.archive.org/web/20241212131304/http://news.bbc.c...