To me it seems pretty obvious that this year will be the Year of Yoshi. There are two games releasing, New Yoshi's Island for 3DS and Yarn Yoshi for Wii U, along with the recent Yoshi DLC in Sonic Lost World. The main argument why this wouldnt happen is because its not his anniversary like it was for Luigi, well those people are wrong. I stole the following paragraph from Wikipedia that states the concept for Yoshi goes as far back as 1984 which would make it his 30 year birthday.

"Shigeru Miyamoto stated that Nintendo had wanted Mario to have a dinosaur companion ever since the first release Super Mario Bros.; however, it was not possible because of the limitations of the NES.[7] 

The inspiration for Yoshi can be traced back further, to the green dragon Tamagon in the 1984 video game Devil World.[8] During the development of Super Mario Bros. 3, Miyamoto had a number of sketches around his desk, including an image of Mario riding a dinosaur. Takashi Tezuka, a Mario series developer, speculated that Miyamoto's love of horse riding as well as country and western influenced Yoshi's creation.[8] 

The concept of Mario riding a dinosaur also came from the NES video game Excitebike, which featured people riding motorcycles. He again wanted to feature Yoshi in Super Mario Bros. 3, but was still unable to.[8] 

Tezuka designed two power-ups to make up for this limitation, the raccoon and frog power-ups. Once the more powerful Super NES was released, Miyamoto was finally able to implement Yoshi into the series, putting him into the video game Super Mario World.[9] 

Yoshi proved to be popular in his debut, which caused the next game in the series, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, to focus on his species.[7]"

Rumors suggest that it will be, and Nintendo will announce end of this month or early next month (giving Luigi a full year). Perhaps at the next Nintendo Direct.

It will be The Year of Third Parties. Quoto me in the future













not

Maybe they could make a new Yoshi's Cookie on the Eshop kinds like they did with Dr. Luigi

Also maybe some Super Mario 3D World DLC, have some extra levels that require Yoshi or maybe pull a New Super Luigi U and make Super Yoshi 3D World.

I also imagine we will see a special edition Yoshi 3DS to coincide with New Island

That would be pretty cool, though trying to call it his anniversary because Miyamoto kind of considered the concept of a rideable dino in 1984 is a tough sell.

So last year was the year of the failure of a brother and this year is the year of a disposable dinosaur that Mario uses to cross gaps he cant make... hey that actually sounds like a good thing for Nintendo.

Let's not forget the obvious announcement that Yoshi will be in Smash Bros

Yeah I think Nintendo will announce a sub-IP, something like Dr. Luigi. I really can't think of other stand alone Yoshi-IP's (assuming Yarn Yoshi is Yoshi's stand alone equivalent to Yoshi Story on N64)

This year is focused on Yoshi. We have a 3DS game featuring Yoshi releasing and a Wii U game scheduled for sometime in the coming years. And we had DLC in a Sonic game featuring Yoshi release last year. Please understand.

True but with Nintendo logic it makes perfect sense

Mehh I don't really care about Yoshi... They should do another franchise instead of another character from Mario

Or heck... Even Zelda, she has always been such a side character... It would fit in perfectly after Luigi