There is usually no fanfare of ‘Coming soon’ advertising from Steinberg about Cubase releases. It usually just appears on the day of release without any marketing. Weird I know but it seems to be the way.
Some recent news was Steinberg expect the video engine to be released around 1st quarter of 2017 (jan /feb) so it would seem very unwise to release C9 without the video engine so my own personal guess would be C9 will be delayed until the video replacement code is ready.
Steinberg have also mentioned that they have no plans at present to use a subscription licence model.
I doubt Guitar Center is going to promote free Cubase 9 upgrade for anyone who purchases C8.5 if they expect it to be released in February or even later.
Time to relax. It’ll get here when it gets here. No amount of postulating will make a difference as to what the actual date is, and that fact is that you won’t know for sure until it happens.
Unless you happen to enjoy postulating, and if so then carry on!