Could be close but I think it will ultimately be down by approx. 100k-200k in the end.

I don't see why 500k in Q1 wouldn't be possible. Last Q1 it did 601k without any game for most of the time. Going as low as < 30k units. I rather think it will stay at about 50k-ish this time and probably sell 800k-900k.
However most important will be the next set of numbers.

2m sold in the Jan-Mar quarter alone?  That isn't remotely realistic.  Also the limited data we have so far indicates the Wii U has less momentum in January, not more.  Week 1 is down YoY in Japan.  In the UK the Wii U had no games in the top 40 (individual/units) in either the first week of 2013 or 2014.  However 2013 had NSMBU (24th) and Nintendo Land (30th) in the value chart.  The Wii U this year has nothing in the top 40 value.

Considering the quarter will be more than half over by the time DK is out Worldwide, it is going to need a hell of a spike.  Probably equivalent to what it was doing over the holidays.  I think a lot of people have forgotten that holiday sales don't last forever.  I've seen multiple predictions recently that expect similar or greater sales in Jan-Mar than in Oct-Dec. 

Integrating 3DS into the Miiverse was a savvy move on Nintendo's part to drum up interest in the Wii U over the long term. And I think that's another reason we could see higher hardware sales going into 2014.

I think we can all agree the Wii U's marketing going into the holidays was terrible. I think Nintendo has learned from their mistakes and they're ready (if not desperate) to turn the ship around. They have a game catalog that is certainly eye-catching whereas in june 2013 that really wasn't the case.

The question is: Is Nintendo ready to open the war-chest of marketing dollars to really make this happen? Seems to strike me they are very creative risk-takers in game design, but are too conservative in day-to-day business operations.

Ah, FISCAL year. My bad. If we're talkign about the next 3 months, then i doubt it then, as the holiday season is over and not much will make people want to go out and buy the console at the moment, thought by september this year, i have no doubt the wii u will outsell every other fiscal year. I'll be sure to read properly next time, sorry about that. 

I dont recall any Mario causing a huge boost in its launch week, I could be wrong tho. It seems more like it causes a sustained increase in baseline sales. An unappealing product doesnt become appealing just because its the holidays. Take a look at Vita for example.

Dec 30, 2012-Nov 16, 2013 

Vita-2.2m, Wii U-1.7m

Nov 17, 2013-Dec 28, 2013

Vita-800k, Wii U-1.3m

In the 6 weeks that 3D World was available the Wii U erased the 500k lead Vita had on it for 2013.

I think sm3dw impacted hugely on sales over xmas.over 1.5 million sold already. Without that game I reckon wii u would have sold 50% less. Im interested to see how q1 fairs for xone and ps4 im expecting a sales slump for both nachines