The PS4 surge in Japan is bizarre too, along with the PS5 maintaining a solid baseline even though it's been widely available in Japan now for months.
A fat chunk of these systems (Switch too) must be going to China.
Here's an article on it
https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-approves-84-domestic-online-games-december-2022-12-28/
Chinese government did freeze any approvals for foreign software for 18 months and the feeling in China seems to be that the government is not going to allow nearly as much video game software to be published period as they fear it is causing game addiction and they don't want foreign influence.
In a year-end meeting this month, Pony Ma, founder of Tencent, said that the company had to get used to Beijing’s strict licensing regime, and the number of new games that China approves would remain limited in the long run.
This seems to extend to Hollywood movies too, the Chinese government is not approving as many Hollywood movies for release there.
So in that context, it suddenly makes a lot of sense why Chinese buyers suddenly are wanting a Japanese system instead. Would you want a system where the government can just cut off all software (even Chinese companies for a time were halted from releasing games, but foreign software got it the worst)? If I owned a PS5 or Switch in China, honestly I'd sell my system and buy a Japanese version instead. No new game approvals for foreign developed games (that means Japan/North America/Euro developed games) for 18 months is ridiculous.
