Inaba stated that that preorders were not used to fund development and that outside investments (VC, etc) were taken.
Ah. Hmm, there goes that theory I guess! :-)
Unless the "VC" actually means his own savings from a scam...?
A likely theory. It's a good way to launder some money I guess. You take pre-orders, but finance the production with dirty money. This way all the scam money is hidden as working capital and eventually extracted as clean profits.