Common sense would tell me that if the NX is coming this year, development surely would have started earlier. However this is Nintendo we're talking about here. Logic sometimes goes completely out the window when it comes to trying to guess what they do.

If the entirety of its development period started in Feb of last year, then that definitely means that the system is launching in 2017.

The only way I could see this not being the case, is if several other bits and pieces of the system already had people working on them before that point, and Steven Chith was brought into the project well after other parts of the project were either done or well underway.

I'm still firmly convinced that a 2017 release date makes more sense, though.
For the sake of getting a final dev kit put together well for the sake of avoiding the multi-dev-kit issues that third parties had with the Wii U, as well as for the sake of giving all parties involved the time needed to create new games for the system.

If the new Mass Effect is coming out next year, for example, and they want to get it onto the NX in its full and complete form, then Nintendo should be giving the devs the time they need to get familiar with the dev kits and get the game done the right way, instead of having no time to learn it, getting confused, then bringing out the game late with content missing.

Nobody knows.

2017 not sooner!

Planning comes first
then Development
then mass production

So yes it did.

All the companies do this. It would be suicide to not be pro - active in the gaming business world. Technology advances way too fast.

I know that temp company. It doesn't mean anything as far as release. They probably hired some extra temp staff to finish off a large project.

Based on part of a statement Satoru Iwata made back at the end of January 2013 while describing Nintendo's next-gen unified architectural strategy, he revealed that the company recently began work on integrated architecture for next-gen platforms some time in 2012.

For the record, Satoru Iwata also revealed that the origin of Wii U's development process began in 2008 which initiated with meetings regarding the approach the company wanted to take with the console's direction and how to differentiate it from the Wii. Based on other Iwata Asks interviews, Wii U's architecture was going through testing, analysis and feedback process back in 2009. In that same year, after the release of Wii Sports Resort for Wii, Nintendo EAD began experimenting with asymmetric gameplay prototype controls and software. By June 2011 at E3, Nintendo revealed the first GamePad prototype controller. Select third parties received second-gen dev kits roughly a month before E3 began.However, the GamePad controller shown at E3 was an improved prototype of the one third parties were in possession of.

According to industry reports, select third parties received finalized Wii U "mass production" dev kits back in May 2012. Wii U later launched in November 2012.