Yeah I saw that. It’s hard not to see it as cynical (a good way to get two sales) but tbh physical sales are broken these days. So many games, especially indie, go digital only and then months later launch a limited run physical version.
Maybe the timing is based on them deciding the preorder numbers are looking good enough to risk it and maybe even the process getting faster somehow. I know personally that getting a run of prints together, if I don’t want to print in house, is very fast these days.
It seems like it’s more consumer friendly to tell folk even just before launch rather than waiting until after everyone’s bought the vanilla game.