It hasn't quite happened yet, but the chance of IT going the way of factory workers in the future seems quite high. It's labor intensive but much of it can be done anywhere in the world. If you are lucky, you can be a liaison between management and constantly shifting overseas techies.

This is certainly not for lack of trying. Outsourcing was much more common 10-20 years ago than it is today but a combination of wage growth in outsourced countries and terrible quality has just about seen the end of the practice.

I'm not sure they are even higher at SCE (Playstation), Nintendo, Bandai or Sega; but at least the people at those companies look happy and like they are having some fun. Actually, happier than the people working at the AAA houses in the USA.

From what I've read the more traditional Japanese way to think about it is that you want to get onto the management track ASAP if you've got any sense.

Also, most employees have to buy their own notebook computers, so you see Windows thickies from the 90s.

Source: worked in Tokyo doing field work for 2 months at a major corporation.

So what does the (private industry) career path for a CS graduate look like? Or do all the folks who want to study something computer-related end up as EEs?

Note the complete change in software development process towards something resembling an assembly line.