In my experience games have gone gold 6-8 weeks before release date. "Going Gold" means that Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo has signed off on the certification of the game, thus allowing it to be pressed, boxed, and shipped to retails stores all around the world. Often times the certification process can take up to a few weeks where multiple builds of the game are submitted as Sony/Microsoft/Nitendo identify bugs/standardization/ errors (for Example, Nintendo once failed a certification because we referred to the directional pad as a directional pad in the control layout screens and not as a "+ Control Pad".) Builds will also fail for identifying any game breaking bugs (hard lock/soft lock) too many major/minor bugs, objectionable content, etc.
During finalling, the team is fixing bugs for the most part. In my expereince, after the game goes gold, team members are either moved onto other projects, begin work on a day one patch for speed/enhancements (which results in a rather large fine from Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo), begin work on a planned update that may add features or begin work on planned DLC. Whather or not any of this work is completed or certified and ready to publish by Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo by the time the game comes out, and is held back really depends on the game.
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