unless they have Mario Galaxy 3, Animal Crossing U or a killer NFC title, I don't think it will happen

EA is not even publishing Rock Band 4 so where did you get the idea they were 'very close' to putting it on the Wii U?

Price drop to $249.99 w/Mario Kart 8 bundled will do more than Zelda would have for sales anyway.

Zelda, especially cartoon shaded Zelda is not a system seller. Wind Waker did not cause a large boost in GCN sales, nor did Skyward Sword for the Wii. 

I personally won't care either way, but the presence of NNID on the COD site along with Guitar Hero incoming is intriguing. Last year the only 3rd party support was Lego, Movie-licensed games, Skylanders/Disney Infinity and Just Dance. It's starting to look as if the variety could expand just a little. I think one of the reasons GC sold better was because it could maintain that kind of variety.

I'm talking a GC level holiday, not a Wii one

GameCube had far more diversity if that's what you're talking about that's not even close. 

Honestly it's better to just not care. Third parties aren't evil or bad, they just don't fit well with Nintendo nor does Nintendo fit well with them. PS4/XB1 even PC are better outlets for third party games (1 million GTAV in 24 hours on Steam ... no way would GTAV on Wii U sniff that even if it was a great port). 

You're seriously using skyward sword to talk about hardware boosts? look at the wii's age and installed base when SS released.

And what info do you have about wind waker hardware boost?

Zelda will always be a system seller.

Great games no doubt, but HW sales were pretty flat YoY. Given that Kart and Smash were still 'new' in this time frame, the sales overall could have been better, No excuses.

"(1 million GTAV in 24 hours on Steam ... no way would GTAV on Wii U sniff that even if it was a great port). "

You're right, it would sell way more than that, especially on september 2013.

Substiute "always" with "once in a while". 

Zelda: Link Between Worlds also didn't do much for the 3DS. 

Zelda fans tend to be Nintendo fans (go figure, what a shock) ... they're going to end up buying the system either way, so it's not like there's a huge surge in sales. 

With *realistic* Zelda what you do get is sometimes you get the dudebros crowd who can be enticed by a "badass" (in their mind) Zelda to buy in, but core Zelda fans? Odds are they like Mario ... and about ten other Nintendo IP too.  

I don't really mind Zelda being delayed at all. Now maybe some folkes will actually give other games like Xenobalde or Star Fox a chance in its absence. 

From interviews. Tweets from Harmonix's account