I work in engineering in a similar industry. For such a thing to happen, a 8-12 month delay, something got seriously fuu-d up. Its probably in production or engineering but we'll never know. Marketing or management could have done it too by over promising on features or schedule. It's probably a number of things rather than a single one. If it was a single problem, those usually call for a one shot delay, say of a month. This long of a delay is probably due to a series of problems.
