Yeah, I expect Smash will be the big holiday game for Nintendo next year. Mario Kart 8 and/or Mario 3D World may have decent legs, but they won't be the focus of Nintendo's lineup at that point.
For all the talk about how delays of 1st party Wii U games (like Pikmin 3) have hurt the Wii U, I would argue that the delay with the most impact on the Wii U is the delay of Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS. If Kid Icarus had been finished in time for the launch of the 3DS in early 2011 as was originally planned, Sakurai might have been able to finish Smash by this holiday. Having Smash AND Mario 3D World available this holiday might have given them a fighting chance against the launch of the X1 and PS4. As it stands now, Smash will be the lone system seller for the Wii U next Holiday, and Xbox and Playstation will have a much stronger software lineup next year than they had at launch.
