If it launched holiday 2013 alongside PS4 and XBOX One. Just listen to how they could've spaced out the games and I think you'll agree it would do better if it were like this. So in November it launched with Super Mario 3D World, Nintendo Land, Pikmin 3 and Wii Party U alongside other 3rd party titles (EA Sports, AC4, CoD Ghosts). Then once January hit they could've released small games like Wii Fit U, Pokemon Rumble U and Dr. Luigi as a cushion to at least keep sales up. In February DKCTF would've came out and then March they released The Wonderful 101. April had a drought but then in May Mario Kart 8 came out. Also could've got Monster Hunter somewhere in there, maybe a drought month but either way I think this would've helped keep sales of hardware and software higher. WindWaker HD could've came out later this summer with a bundle after the Mario Kart bundle ended.

No. It would have sold much worse with that much competition.

Launching either earlier or later would have been better than the date chosen. If later they could have had more games ready, more eshop content ready and they could have maybe upped the specs a bit when Sony upped the PS4. 2 gig of RAM was just fine when PS4 had 4. When they went to 8 Wii U should have been 3 or 4 to minimize the gap to PS2 vs XBox levels. As it stands Wii U is a little weaker than ideal.

But really the Wii U's biggest problem was design, content and marketing. Launch date is secondary to other major items.

Of course it would have been doing better this year, the question is would it have been doing better than 2013 and 2014 combined.

Wow, lots of these "If things were different, would Wii U be doing better?" threads lately. I'm going to quote vivster from another thread:

vivster said:
"Let's say everything would be different. Do you think everything would be different?"

Definitely could have helped, but it would've needed good marketing to go with it.

Nope. It would have a better launch and sales would be better aligned but in the end, it wouldn't change anything. Honestly, I believe that Holiday 2012 was the correct time to launch, they just needed to plan the release schedule better.

Wii U was never going to be a big success.

The outdated hardware would still be unable to compete in any way.

I thought it would at least turn out profitable

Even if all those games were ready the system would have been destroyed by the competition. If anything releasing it a year earlier is one of the few smart things Nintendo did with the system.