People like to bash Itagaki because of his arrogance and DOA, but Team Ninja has become a damn good video game developer in recent years. Not only have they made some of the best looking games of this generation, but they have been good at pushing game design as well. Ninja Gaiden was probably the first action game with the deep combat system and enemy AI to force players to approach the game like a fighting game, and DOAU probably has the best online implementation of any fighting game out there in addition to being one of the first online 3d fighting games availible. Team Ninja has also done a good job of pioneering new ways of integrating online into single player games (throught the hurricane packs and the master ninja tournament), which is impressive considering how few Japanese developers even try to integrate online features into their games.
Hate all you want, but Itagaki is not the fool some of you portray him to be. Even if DOA4 fails to push the series forward or has bad graphics, Ninja Gaiden and even DOAU prove that Team Ninja is a solid developer. I don't think anyone can really dispute his idea that Japanese game developers are in danger of being eclipsed by western developers in terms of financial success, and he's right that they need to really go all out and try to hold their ground against western developers.