Like I have pointed out a few times now, this year only saw a noticable bump during May-July in which Nintendo not only released Mario Kart but released it during a time that was facing a drought in the prior year. Mario Kart gave us all the false assumption that Smash Bros would give a similar boost but since Smash released during a time that did have a big game the prior year (Mario 3D World) the boost was minimal.
Next year doesn't have the big hitters that this year had outside of Zelda. Games like Kirby/Yoshi won't be huge and with Wii U having a plethora of platformers already they like won't cause very big boosts. They are similar to Tropical Freeze or Captain Toad as far as system sellers go. Devil's Third will perform poorly, similar to Bayonetta. Star Fox has been gone for a decade and been close to 2 decades since a really good traditional entry released. I just can't see a $50-60 rail shooter being a big console mover. Xenoblade is pretty niche, the last entry sold under 1 million on an install base of 100 million, this game looks great but won't sell extremely well. Mario Party will probably sell decently but with a bunch of party games and Mario games on the system, the fanbase is already on Wii U. Mario Maker/Splatoon have potential and would have done excellent on Wii in its prime but they are probably hindered sales wise simply by being on Wii U, they will sell well but won't cause massive boosts. Zelda is the only game currently announced for next year which is a guaranteed big seller (3 million or more) but with Wind Waker HD & Hyrule Warriors already available it's likely that a good chuck of the fanbase is already on Wii U.
Having a more consistant release schedule and a $50 price cut will merely stop the decline from being so big. I imagine Wii U will be down 10-20% YoY so about 3-3.5 million sold in 2015.
When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.
