I'm certainly not knowledgable enough to try and get inside the head of Apple's strategic decision makers, but if I had to guess I would say that they already had a proven form factor and supply chain in place to produce the 8 and 8 Plus so they chose to launch with three models instead of just one or two because:
1) There was execution risk with the X. Had they run into supply chain issues or the facial recognition didn't work properly, they would still have had a new phone to launch.
2) $1k is an elevated price point and so the 8/8 Plus present a hedge against risk that consumers won't pay more than $800 for the X.
3) Perhaps most importantly, from what I read Apple couldn't have produced enough X's to come close to meeting the initial demand, which is in large part why the raised the price in the first place. Keep in mind that if they had not released the 8's early with plenty of supply, lots of those buyers would have wanted the X. If you have a supply shortage, raising the price is the obvious move. But then that leaves huge swaths of people who want to give you their money and stay in your ecosystem who are unable to because they have to wait months to get the phone.
So if those theories are true, then we should expect the 6/7/8 form factor to be sunset after this release cycle and then the X and the reported larger X Plus (or whatever it will be called) will be the new form factor once the supply chain and demand concerns have worked themselves out. I think the multi release was just a bridge to get them to the new price point and form factor.
1) There was execution risk with the X. Had they run into supply chain issues or the facial recognition didn't work properly, they would still have had a new phone to launch.
2) $1k is an elevated price point and so the 8/8 Plus present a hedge against risk that consumers won't pay more than $800 for the X.
3) Perhaps most importantly, from what I read Apple couldn't have produced enough X's to come close to meeting the initial demand, which is in large part why the raised the price in the first place. Keep in mind that if they had not released the 8's early with plenty of supply, lots of those buyers would have wanted the X. If you have a supply shortage, raising the price is the obvious move. But then that leaves huge swaths of people who want to give you their money and stay in your ecosystem who are unable to because they have to wait months to get the phone.
So if those theories are true, then we should expect the 6/7/8 form factor to be sunset after this release cycle and then the X and the reported larger X Plus (or whatever it will be called) will be the new form factor once the supply chain and demand concerns have worked themselves out. I think the multi release was just a bridge to get them to the new price point and form factor.