It matters when their entire plan is to get people that are going to stick around for the entire lifecycle of the game and support it for years to come, as there's only one disc. I imagine they plan to make just as much off of characters and DLC as they do from day 1 sales.
This entire kerfuffle kind of baffles me, to be honest. Everything anyone complaining about will eventually be coming, in addition to being able to buy DLC that would otherwise be locked exclusively behind a paywall with in game currency. All you have to do was wait. The cry comes back, it should have shipped with everything I wanted on Day 1, and then the argument changes focus.
Basically, what everyone upset about this is saying they would rather have had the same game, with the same amount of content it's eventually going to get, delayed until march or september, depending on what you're caring about in particular. Then people like me go "Well, but I wanted it now, and I don't care about any of that stuff. Why not you just wait, and I can get it early to play the game" people seem to flip out and start arguing about the game being dastardly on principle or something. Just wait. Literally just wait one month. Is that really such an absurd thing to ask of people?
As for those who bought the game and can't return it, and feel blindsided by the lack of singleplayer modes, I can't get behind the argument that because the features have been standard for years, you can expect them in game without doing any research on the game at all. This isn't just about Street Fighter, but it's something I don't understand. Don't pre-order games you don't follow. Don't pre-order games you aren't completely sure about. Hell, just wait a single day and look at reviews and online buzz. You could have waited LESS than a day, you could have waited 5 hours and gone into a store and bought the game in the mid afternoon and you'd have been free and clear. I'm totally baffled at the intersection of people that care about a game so much that they need to pre-order it or buy it outright because they're so excited and can't wait for reviews, and haven't been following the game at all, in any form, and don't even know the most basic features the game'll ship with, or that it'll be updated with later.
As someone pointed out before, this approach means that your 60 dollar disc today, will be getting it's balance updates for free forever, multiple modes over time, and the ability to buy DLC characters with fight money over time. If you actually play the game for several years, it will be cheaper by far in the long run.
But instead I guess everyone would have rather the game be delayed half a year for everyone so that the people who just want to play arcade mode feel cater'd to.