Delay most likely is for the disk… if you got the game already the update will push whenever capcom Europe pushes it. I’m guessing servers will be down the day before to push update.
But this is capcom, I can see them pushing the update on release day, servers being down and those folks getting into SFV for the first time won’t even get a chance to play online or gain FM day 1.
I’m working for UPS, what you did is an Express deliver. We and DHL are forced to deliver the item to the customer next day worldwide. Some clients take also special orders we have to deliver before 10:00 a.m. of the next morning, always worldwide. All depends how much you want to spend to receive your package asap.
When ps3 first was a thing I remember if a publishers missed the gold date even by a day it delayed the release for months. There wasn’t that many blu ray pressing factories at the time so if you missed your window you were SOL. Happened to GT 5 and a few other titles. Now it’s not so much an issue.
Even though the characters are on a code the disk art is most likely different and it will probably have the general story loaded on the disk as opposed to a psn download. Just a guess as I have no clue really.
I haven’t actually read the long list of patch notes. I’m waiting on whatever gets released officially in English. I assume it’ll be different and comprehensive enough that I can really think about how the overall balance will be in the game.