They certainly knew there were problems, and they were working on them, but it looks like the release date was set in stone (or else they would have need to change the name!).
It is well known that it’s hard to get software developers to say they’ve finished. There’s always something that needs adding, tweaking or fixing. So the powers-that-be need to assess whether the issues remaining are significant enough to warrant the embarassment of a delay.
In this case, the decision they made was the wrong one.
A more egregious example of this is currently playing out in the Post Office scandal in the UK. Even years after the release of buggy software, management refused to acknowledge it as a problem. In that case, the consequences were far worse.