Last holiday Wii U had a pretty solid launch selling 2.25m and two million sellers in New Super Mario Bros U/Nintendo Land. The big problem Wii U had was that despite the decent launch/holiday, its sales plummeted during the early parts of this year. Many people have there opinions on why this happened but I believe it was due to 3 major things: lack of compelling exclusives, most expensive console on the market and lack of advertising. The first half of 2013 only had Lego City Undercover+Game & Wario as exclusives and a bunch of ports (many of which were released months earlier on other consoles), it cost $299-349 while PS3/360 could be found as low as $199 and I didnt see a single post launch advertisement for Wii U until August of this year.

They have slowly but surely fixed these problems in the second half of this year with exclusives like Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101, Sonic Lost World, Wind Waker HD, Wii Party U, Sonic & Mario Olympics and Super Mario 3D World, a $50 price cut on the deluxe model and with the launch of PS4/One is no longer the most expensive console, also there has been a decent amount of advertising for Wii U going on lately. Sales have been rising but it still hasnt had a huge holiday boost.

That brings me to the point of this thread, even if Wii U doesnt see a huge spike and has a modest holiday, its likely that whatever momentum they create this holiday wont fall off a cliff like it did last year. As of now Wii U has a steady stream of quality exclusives early next year, January-Wii Fit U, February-Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Spring-Mario Kart 8 and there are rumors that Super Smash Bros for Wii U will release in the first half of the year. The second half of the year could still have games like Bayonetta 2, Yarn Yoshi, Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem, X, 3rd Sonic exclusive, and some unnanounced possibilities like Wii Sports Club retail version, Mario Party U or Legend of Zelda U.

So what is more important for Wii U, a strong holiday season this year and a big dropoff next year or a modest holiday along with steady sales in the early parts of next year?

I don't know what to think with the Wii U anymore. Super Mario 3D World was supposed to help the Wii U but so far the boost is lame.

I doubt it will have a good holiday and I doubt that the console will hold a steady momentum on 2014. I doubt the system will be profitable in the long run. I have too many doubts with the Wii U but one thing is certain, the ship is already sinking :/.

if they keep wii U above 100k every week in 2014, would be enough.

i dont see that happening, unless they do another cut. It needs to happen thats for damn sure.

most likely Smash Bros. maybe X, hopefully Zelda (wishful thinking)

they need 5 good games to sell 40 mil of consoles, and they are:

1. Zelda Wii U
2. Super Mario Galaxy 3
3. Mario Kart 8
4. Xenoblade (project X)
5. Super Smash Brothers

Even if they stop developing games after those 5, console with be mediocre success.

Strong holiday sales with sustained momentum.

The way I see it the first one will lead to the other.

No offense but this kinda sniffs of pre-emptive damage control because some Nintendo fans have spent the better part of a year hying up the year end 2013 period as a guaranteed 3DS like turn around and now we're supposed to buy the "well, 2013 was never important anyway, it's all about 2014" line?

If its a healthy platform it should have both a good holiday season and good momentum into next year, it should not be a case of either/or. That line of reasoning doesn't make any sense really, I mean if people are not buying the system with NSMBU/Mario 3D World/Wii Party/Wii Sports/Pikmin 3/Wii Fit/Sonic/LEGO, then that doesn't bode well at all for something like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (which is a shame because I love that franchise).

There's no excusing a modest holiday.

Either is good, both is better.

this i havent seen this level of damage control since PS3. Hell the damage control doesnt bother me its the history revisioning that is sad.