Asked a few Japanese friends of mine who live in Japan and play games. They aren't at all pissed. Japanese people really have a different mindset, they are happy Sony is clearly going to win this generation in probably all markets. If getting that edge means delaying in a market that is essentially guaranteed for them, and every Japanese person who plays games knows that is the case, they will "suffer" gladly for the glory of etc. It really is more important to them that a Japanese company do well than they get the product first.
That fits actually. In college (Hawaii) there was a lot of focus on Japanese culture since there are so many Japanese people in Hawaii. In my business culture class we spent several months doing case studies on Japanese companies. They do not follow normal capitalistic traditions there.
Say a car company comes into Japan. If it sold specialized cars, with no direct competition in the local market, it is welcomed. However, if it competes with the locals (they have a vastly larger selection of cars there than what is exported out of the country), everything changes.
Say there are 4 companies. 3 domestic and 1 foreign. 2 of the domestic are fine, but the 1 foreign company is able to be a direct competitor and a threat to the 3rd domestic company. Company 1 and 2 will then lower their profit margins to squeeze out the foreign company, even though company 3 is a competitor with 1-2. Once the foreign company is squeezed out, they go back to normal. This is rare though, because few countries have more restrictions/taxes/tolls on foreign companies than Japan, so international competitors with a local product is not common there at all. They are VERY nationalistic.
Japanese business (and regular) culture is very fascinating since (if I remember correctly) the country transformed from a feudal government to a capitalistic society in roughly 50 years. The quick change left a culture that infused much of the previous old "honor and pride" system into normal and business culture, something not really seen in any other western/capitalistic country where money and profit is the only thing that matters.
Note --- I learned the above in class years ago, so would welcome a view from someone from Japan who can confirm/deny the statements. It was very fascinating to me, but it might not be true....
