As a reminder, the leak said the patch was releasing alongside DLC2, not that either of them were releasing alongside the hardware. So whatever winter 2023 or early 2024 means or whatever date it ends up being, that would just be a maximum date for the hardware launch, and it could happen any time before that. Like, oh, I don't know, holiday 2023 or something.
Still not buying the leak though. The unconfirmed part about the new Terastal mechanic doesn't seem terribly hard to guess, and doesn't prove knowledge of hardware plans even if true.