A week before Black Friday, so that the following week (which will be Black Friday) will have huge chance of even more sales. If there's one thing Smash Bros. is gonna have (which Mario Kart didn't), it's the holiday season for the push in sales as it launches, I wouldn't be surprised if Mario Kart 8 also sold pretty well during this time period. I doubt Smash will outsell Mario Kart 8, but it should do respectable numbers, especially since it's launching in the holidays.

inb4"Hi,thisisReggie,wewilldelaySmashWiiUuntilspringbecauseit'snotfinished".

Mother of mem no, the week before would be better. The manager at my GameStop said as long as it doesnt launch on Black Friday they are going to have a midnight launch.

pokemon is releasing that week, so nintendo will not release smash anywhere near that date before or after. it will be december at best.

I say at least 2 weeks before. Pokemon OR/AS will be released Black Friday in Europe, and one week before in Japan and North America. To those who say December, do you really think it is a good idea to have it miss the big day?

I completely forgot about Pokémon, Nintendo will definitely want that to have free reign when it releases. Two weeks might be the more realistic option. (That or a week after Black Friday... but if it misses Black Friday then that might not be good.)

I also still wonder why people think it's not releasing this year. They said on the Digital Event that it was releasing Holiday 2014.

It will be.

It's really interesting, as we all know that Sakurai is a perfectionist and he will take as long as he possibly can to polish his game. The Smash Bros. 3DS bump from "Summer" to October 3rd shows that, and I'm sure that if Sakurai had it his way, Smash Bros. Wii U would be a January/Februrary 2015 release.

Obviously, Nintendo cannot afford this. Smash will be Wii U's biggest incentive for holiday shoppers, and releasing in the holiday 2014 season is paramount for any sort of success for the system (Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker can only push the console so much!). You gotta know that Iwata is doing all he can to keep Smash Bros. Wii U on schedule. I'd bet that if push comes to shove, Nintendo could even release it and then have a Day 1 patch to add features/content/etc. just to keep it in this year.

Ah, yes.  It seems we always forget about the Day One patch.