From what? It was pretty much assumed a launch title and the same source which is telling us it might miss launch is saying testing will likely be 4-6months starting the new year which means April-June. 

Furthermore Zelda is not the only thing Nintendo can use to sell systems, so I will wait for their official games line before making any comparisons to the Wii U which launched with nothing more than 2D Mario and the promise of Pikmin 3 and Wonderful 101 arriving later in the year lol

Zelda has been constantly released during holidays. Remasters not, but new games. Also the past may games are multiplayer online focused.

Maybe they would've had more of an incentive to make those games if they'd seen higher sales for their existing great games.

I mean why are there only 7m sales for Mario Kart when it could be 13m? It's such a great game, yet half of Wii U owners chose to not give Nintendo money for it. Why should Nintendo owe them for that?

Majora's Mask launched first in Japan in April, Windwaker launched in Spring for NA/EU. There is no strict timetable Nintendo adhere to, they just do what they think makes sense for that year. BOTW has been the primary game marketed with Switch, its already had 2 major delays and Nintendo  have spoken numerous times about not repeating the Wii U's software issues. I don't see them intentionally pushing the game to the holiday and if they do, it means they've got plenty of games to fill up the summer/fall months.

Those 2 games are from 2000 and 2003. And TWW released first in Japan in holiday 2002. Past 13 years are holiday releases.

Famitsu is reporting 262,961 units sold in 4 days for Famicom Mini

 http://www.famitsu.com/news/201611/15120647.html

vs

PS4 Pro sold 65,194 consoles in Japan in the first 4 days

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201611/16120739.html

I never said otherwise, the point is there isn't this strict regime of launching during the holiday.

The past "13 years" equates to 2 mainline Zelda games. 

Twilight Princess, originally intended for October 2005 but delayed to launch with the Wii in Novemeber 2006.

Skyward Sword, Nintendo's sole holiday release for 2011. Of course they weren't going to release it in some random point in the year.

Context is key and far more important than release history which is all over the place for the franchise. Holiday was of course the original target but since it got delayed a release date of ASAP is more realistic as we saw with Uncharted 4 which had a series history of holiday release. If Nintendo have no big 2017 holiday title for the masses I could see them pushing BOTW to be that title, if they do, then I think they will release it when its ready and ensure Switch keeps up post launch sales momentum. 

Twilight Princess

Phantom Hourglass

Spirit Tracks

Skyward Sword

A Link Between Worlds

Hyrule Warriors

Triforce Heroes

Spirit tracks was intended for March 2010, it was moved forward to not clash with Skyward Sword which at the time was internally planned for 2010.

Hyrule Warriors is a August release. 

But I'm not interested in your opinion that Zelda must launch in Holiday. Its false.