The story I heard is that Nikon intentionally crippled their video recording modes (29:59 time limit?) for import/export tax reasons.

Whereas apparently Sony and Canon didn't.

Edit: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-00127...

So seems the full story is about the EU. Digital still image cameras (which were made in the EU?) were not taxed. Digital camcorders (which were mostly made in Japan) were taxed at either 4.9% or 14%. One distinguishing as to whether a camera was still or camcorder was "Whether the device can record at least 30 minutes of video."

The law was repealed in 2019.