Whether this is delayed or not, I find it very hard to believe that with X, Yoshi, Kirby, Mario Maker, Mario vs. DK, Devil's Third, etc. all having been in development for quite some time, that Q1 or Q2 are going to be "barren" in 2015 for Wii U. At least not from Nintendo.

Not terribly unlikely but also not perfectly likely either. They had it up and running at Treehouse three weeks ago, but they were very keen on not showing menus or level selection on the basis of it not being ready; so at least as of three weeks ago the title was not ready for release in a very literal sense of the word. It could well have been pushed back out of necessity if they felt it wasn't ready in time for before Christmas release as it becomes rather self-defeating to release anything post a certain day in that holiday area.

They may well have also quite literally moved it once the Sm4sh development finished in a timely manner and had it "scheduled" as a trump in case of an emergency breakdown with the actual important title. There's no doubt that Sm4sh development was going to run close to the wire on this years cycle, especially with the issues they had been having in WiiU development with a crash bug. With it finalized, and the Amiibo push starting, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they moved Toad out of the way to avoid it being burried under more affluencial titles and, also not unlikely, better implementing Amiibo into the game.

Always the possibility Amiibo preorders far exceeded expectations and they are taking back the title to better implement the concept.

Well right.....Yoshi, Splatoon, Kirby, Mario Maker, Mario vs. DK, Devil's Third, X, this "Star Fox" project, SMT x FE, Retro's still unannounced project, Zelda, they're all bound to be released in 2015. And that's not including whatever companies like Monster Games and Nexl Level happen to be working on also, as well as Nintenod themselves, and whatever inevitable third party colaboration surprises they will eventually announce (E3), kind of like Hyrule Warriors being a total surprise, etc.

Most of EAD has already produced a title, or is producing one, or is out of commision at the moment. The usual Marios have been released, Toad is under one part of the 3D World EAD Tokyo and the others may well be working on Galaxy HD or whatever. Aonuma and his branch are working on Zelda. Some parts of EAD Kyoto relocated and haven't been working on anything since their new building was built recently.

No, it wasn't. Tecmo said it's JP only "as far as they know", but Nintendo are publishing, so it's their call, not Tecmo's. And Nintendo have changed their mind about this sort of thing before; see Xenoblade.

It may yet be localized.

>It may yet be localized.
Yeah, sometimes in 2018. Censor to "Yoshi games" level.

We thought this last year too though. It was like "oh, with DK, MK8, Smash, X, Bayonetta 2, Hyrule Warriors, and unannounced titles, they'll be no droughts for 2014!" 

Don't underestimate Nintendo's ability to create software droughts. It's their speciality these days.

On a pure software aspect, thats not really true as you have IntSys release good stuff like Pushmo, and their indie line-up has been great with Shovel Knight and other such big hitting titles on the eShop. Its the retail releases that have been getting gutted but even as far back as E3, everything sans a handful of titles was already "2015".

The likes of Pushmo and Shovel Knight are no substitute for games like Mario Kart, Bayonetta, Xenoblade, etc.

And yeah, pretty much everything at e3 being labelled "coming 2015" was the main sour point of an otherwise amazing showing.

Shovel Knight and Pushmo are fleshed out games for their price tag, and while I agree that individually they are nothing, I consider eShop titles to work off the idea of the whole greater than the sum. But I'm just being the voice of reason here: 2015 has been known since E3. The only change is that they seemingly moved (or delayed for valid reasons) Toad out of the holiday onslaught.

That said, I looked over EAD's development and both Tokyo groups are lacking in titles. EADT2 is working on the next Mario, but EADT1 (which has been in charge of a lot of the remasters and remakes) has been completely silent since 2013, this is likely going to be the source of the 2015 remaster... and they made Mario Galaxy, so 1+1=Galaxy.