No, it most definitely is a pre-order store.
No u!
But seriously...if it WAS just a pre-order store than every single failure to deliver on a promise would be prosecuted, regardless of circumstance or intention. If you pre-order a vibrating dildo and you get only a plain old boring dildo without the vibrator you can ask for your money back. And if the store refuses saying "sorry brah we really tried but you know how it is, risk and all that" the authorities WILL stomp on them, no ifs, ands or buts.
When it comes to crowdfunding tho it's a much greyer area. Yes the FTC does prosecute failed projects but in all the cases I could find it's only when the creators straight up grab the money and run, i.e. don't show enough good faith to accommodate the donors. There's
this whole thing:
In a statement to
The Verge, the FTC said, “FTC investigations are nonpublic so we generally don’t comment on whether we are investigating a company or not.
...
The FTC only once publicly
investigated a crowdfunding campaign in 2015.....At the time,
the FTC said it was okay with the core idea of crowdfunding and the risks involved, but it did want to make sure backers’ money truly went toward a product and that creators didn’t run off with it. “Consumers should be able to trust their money will actually be spent on the project they funded,” said Jessica Rich, who was the then-director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
The boldened part tells you that the FTC sees crowdfunding differently from a simple pre-order. HOW differently tho and where exactly is the line, well that's the grey area. Ultimately backers would have to sue Suzuki and the court would have to produce some sort of precedent. Until then it's all speculation.