A really good Pokemon game would be amazing!

I was going to say the same thing. Having Pokemon by it's first holiday guarantees it's success. It was so stupid for the 3DS to not get Pokemon until it's 3rd holiday.

Pokemon usually doesn't come that early.

I think Animal Crossing + Mario Galaxy 3 would be a strong 1-2 punch, one for launch day, one for the post-launch period.

IMO, Animal Crossing, Mario Galaxy 3, Luigi's Mansion 3, and Mario Kart 9 at minimum should already be well into development for the system and all aimed for a 2016 launch. 

I dunno if they are going to go straight to Splatoon 2 which would require more time, but maybe a Splatoon: Special Edition or something could happen early in the life cycle too. 

GameFreak never releases a mainline Pokemon on a new handheld with low install base. Remember black & white 2 ? They released it on DS when 3DS was already on the market .. I think there is no chance we will have a pokemon game at launch.

I think that was a very different situation. The DS life cycle was long enough to support two Pokemon generations. B2W2 were also "third" games. They couldn't be released on the 3DS. And lastly, a major reason the 3DS launched so poorly is because there was a new Pokemon game being released over a year into the thing's life cycle on the DS, which was incredebly stupid.

Unless anyone actually expects Gamefreak to take a year off and break their steak of releasing new games every year and release Gen 7 in 2017 instead of 2016, I see absolutely no way the Pokemon game doesn't comeout the same year. We're most likely getting the last game of the generation this holiday, which means that Gen 7 is most likely two years away. That lines up with the end of 2016, by which the successor will probably be out. I just don't know if I see it working differently.

A Mario game has to be there this time. If they release in Spring, they should have Pokemon ready for the fall.

I think a better launch window, of six months or so, is going to be more important than a launch packed with games. Wii U showed that any launch for a Nintendo system will be perfectly fine in terms of hardware sales. It is what follows when many of the core gamers have already made their purchase that matters.

LEGO Game
Street Fighter V port
F2P obscure 20yo IP from Nintendo (Ice Climbers maybe)
Cooking Mama
Gundam something
Movie tie ins
Random racing game(US launch)
Random football game(EU launch)
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze(killer app)

F-zero
-To bring in fans.
Super Mario
-To bring in the average joe.

The NexTendo handheld at least will have at release:

- A New Super Mario Bros.
- A Pokemon spinoff (probably Mistery Dungeon).
- A remake of an old game (I bet it's Golden Sun or Advance Wars).
-A Brain Training or something similar.

But yes, they need seventh gen pokemon ready for the second year maximum. Probably better if it comes along with the first hardware redesign.

Pokemon is not going to be a launch title but I do believe it will release sooner than the 3DS installments.

It was close to 3 years after launch that 3DS finally got a mainline Pokemon title, that's too long. If the next handheld releases in mid-2016 then I think holiday 2017 seems like a good time to release Pokemon Gen 7.