The trade off they're talking about is to arrive at the same end product.

The reason games are typically released as "fetuses" is because it reduces the financial risk. Much like any product, you want to get it to market as soon as is sensible in order to see if it's worth continuing to spend time and money on it.

And this really shouldn't surprise professionals in an industry where everything's always about development velocity and releasing Minimum Viable Products as quickly into the market as possible.