I only now noticed that Zelda is stated as "2017" on the official site.

I'm thinking it might turn out to be Holiday 2017 afterall :(.

...Yes?

I don't see why not. I expect they wanna annunce the NX very close to launch, so the hype should remain strong for the months before release. Like said, i expect they to annunce NX this November.

Yes.

Yes, I'm positive that Zelda and NX will launch together in march, though if one gets delaywd, the other is too

You think Nintendo will release Zelda for the Wii U like 14 months after Paper Mario? Which looks like it will be their last before Zelda.

Even though they'll still support 3DS through 2017, they still need the NX out as soon as possible, so yes, they will launch it before March 2017 ends.

Very damaging to launch post christmas I still wonder if it will be bought forward for one region at least.

Yes, I'm expecting it'll be March. With previous hardware launches, Nintendo have only announced the specific details two months before launch. We'll see NX sometime soon (I hope this month), but price and exact release dates/software will probably only be confirmed in January.

If it was for the end of 2017, Nintendo would not keep releasing videos.

Like this one last month http://www.gamespot.com/articles/link-rains-death-from-above-in-new-zelda-breath-of/1100-6443195/

It's coming first half of 2017, it's just that Nintendo doesn't want to talk about NX at all right now, and maybe they think Zelda is not a good game to have on launch. Nintendo plans to have a continuous stream of game releases in the months following the launch, so maybe Zelda will come after, in may. They're not going to release everything on day one.

The launch of the NX is not just one day, it's going to be from march to the end of the year.