Oh really?
Alright then, lay it on me. Where's the contradiction?
Actually planning well in advance is quite the recommended thing to do for any kind of project. Espeically if you wanna release it in packs, or at a uniform pattern of release date.
I mean, nobody was expecting a DLC announcement before the game released for that very reason, yet here we are. Also, what Sakurai likes or doesn't like can get easily overturned if the head honchos at Nintendo demand otherwise.
Corrin being promotion for Fire Emblem Fates, serves as quite the example.
And your evidence to suggest such is? Again, there was a time when people assumed that this game was a port becuase of how quickly it came after Smash 4's campaign ended. But here's the thing. A lot of the development and planning was done right off the tail end of Smash 4. So you can bet that much of it was done prior. Remember, we also need to factor in all the time spent on developing the base game. That would've taken a good chunk of the dev time, while simultaneously they were discussing DLC plans, getting contracts, deals, etc, before moving on to working them. Not to mention,
at this stage of the game, the base game is pretty much done, and they'd already be moving on to DLC work. Now, it doesn't guarantee that all the DLC has been planned....on its own. If they have all that stuff factored in, and haven't closed all the deals required to facilitate the quantity of DLC they've promised...they as a business would never promise that stuff with their being any risk of it not going through.
Take it from someone with a double major in business communications and videogame design.
