Conversely, you could look at it as 8 groups of 6 where 2 of the 6 teams get eliminated after 2 games, and then the remaining 4 play each other to determine which 3 advance to the round of 16.

The whole reason for the change in format was simply to figure out a way to invite more teams (48 instead of 32) while not increasing the number of games a single team would have to play.

Current formats you get:

16 teams playing 3 games
8 teams playing 4 games
4 teams playing 5 games
2 teams playing 6 games


The new format we will get:

16 teams playing 2 games
16 teams playing 3 games
8 teams playing 4 games
4 teams playing 5 games
2 teams playing 6 games