Zelda U will release the Friday or Sunday before Black Friday in November 2015. Calling it now. It COULD appear or be teased in a big Nintendo Direct early next year, but most likely it will be shown at E3 2014...they'll say, "we would like to take a little more time to make sure it's ready...please understand this situation." It will reappear at E3 2015 and finally get a Holiday 2015 release window. Like others have said, they have plenty of high-quality exclusives slated for 2014 already. 

Given that Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword suffered similar delays, you're probably right.

Wrong, It's highly likely to release in 2014. they already said it could be shown at E3 2013.

you mentioned albw recent release as an argument, but it is totally irrelevant. in fact, it means that the team can join the zelda U dev group to finish it as fast as possible.

anyway, the usual time between console zeldas is 3 years. the only reason why skyward sword took 5 was because of motion plus implementation late in the dev cycle, causing the game to be pratically remade. iwata already said he plans to keep the 3 year cycle for zeldas, without delays.

So, EVERYTHING points to a 2014 release. if it somehow ends up releasing in 2015, it will be early in the year.

Yarn Yoshi isn't listed as 2014 but even if we say it is they'd still have to release five (six if you include MH in EU) unannounced games just to match the number of Nintendo published games from this year.

It will be one of their worst mistakes for this console. Unless they replace this game as the big holiday 2014 delaying SSB. Or what do you expect them to release off next holidays?

skyward sword was announced in 2010, 1.5 years before release. just like zelda U could be shown this year and will probably release in 2014. it's also interesting to see people thinking this is a holiday title only. as in: if it doesn't release in 2014 holiday, it will only release in 2015 holidays. no sense.

Finally someone who speaks sense. If Nintendo is consistent with two things it's that every game always gets delayed about seventeen times before it comes out, and their games take stupid amounts of time to develop. Even if they started development of Zelda U the exact second Skyward Sword was done, that would mean they'll only be three years into development at the end of next year. A console Zelda game in three years' time is exactly the sort of thing that we would reasonably expect, and thus is the exact sort of thing that Nintendo will never do. We'll get our first look at E3 2014, a better look at E3 2015, and if we're lucky it will come out that November.

Frankly, I'm doubting even Smash will release next year, though for the sake of the system I can hope.

Unless Nintendo is dumb enough to delay everything towards the holidays or early 2015.

I honestly think console Zelda games release that far apart from one another because of planning and not because it takes that long to make them. I think they take their time because other software sustains the console. However with the Wii U they need games quick so I think they will (and have been) focusing much earlier on Zelda console game than in the past after they released one (Skyward Sword in this case). They want to make money, so they aren't going to wait until 2015 to release Zelda U lol. Not to mention we were told a trailer was ready for last years E3 (2012). Nintendo doesn't have a trailer ready for a game that is still 3 years away from being complete.

I don't think it's that ridiculous for Zelda U to be released 2014, but I am not expecting it to.