Isn't it usually the Publisher who puts the pressure onto the team to deliver a game exactly on day X ?
The questions I ask myself now are these :
- Why couldn't they wait ?
- Did the Publisher take into consideration that the amount of sold units would be higher if the press about it wasn't so bad ?
My personal - and highly subjective - impression is, that Publishers usually don't care. They are usually fully accepting bad sales even with buggy games.
Plus, and that's usually the worst thing : The gamers usually blame the developers for delivering a buggy game - the publisher usually can lean back, having "hands washed in innocence".
Usually, the shitstorm goes towards the developers, not towards the publishers who demand "day X".
Now I wonder, who has the fault in this matter (wrong decistions) ?