Last generation a bit over 150Million consoles were sold to the 'core gamer' demographic worldwide. So far this generation we are sitting at ~52Million units sold to that same demographic. Given we have been looking at healthy double digit growth rate percentage wise it isn't unreasonable to expect this market to end up in the 170-200Million range this generation.
This current generation a couple different factors are clouding things up a bit. First off is MS launched rather early, the PS2 lasting an additional 2 years. MS did this for many reasons, the most pressing being their desire to gain an installed base advantage which up until now has paid off rather well for them. Long term this may end up costing them a bit, their media choice was very poor for a high def console, we are already staring down releases covering 4 disks, and we still haven't hit the fourth year of the consoles life cycle. I honestly think that this limitation is going to end up being the biggest factor pushing MS into the next round. Everything else in their system is well suited to last for a considerable amount longer then the last generation.
The Wii is off in its' own little world, it doesn't appeal to 'core gamers' as the other two do and its' target audience is much less interested in superior cinematic gaming experiences, so the technical limitations of their system aren't as much of a drain as the other offerings. That said, Nin could push out a HD version of the Wii, using simply more powerful versions of the Wii hardware to allow for HD gaming and do it rather cheaply. If they will want to pursue this or not, I don't know. But it is well within the realm of reasonable to think they will head somewhere in this general direction. They may look at it as countering the other systems motion control setups that are coming next year.
Sony is in a very different position and one that hasn't been approached before in the console space. They are clearly in last place at the moment, ~8Million units behind MS on a global basis- but in terms of dollars they have easily outsold MS on consoles to date, and are close to Nin. Before the PS3 no console moved 5Million units at $400- the PS3 has moved 22Million at that price point. Why is that a factor? We aren't sure how much a price drop is going to impact their installed base numbers moving forward. Because they are currently operating on a level that hasn't ever existed before- and have done it for so long, it is hard to gauge how much the $299 and then the $199 price point is gong to do for their numbers relative to the competition. Obviously they have a decisive edge in storage medium, and that is their biggest advantage in terms of how long their system can last and remain viable, but the level of sales they reach once they close in on the mass market price point is going to heavily influence not only their plans for the next generation, but also MS's.
When we see the next gen is going to depend on a lot of differing factors IMO. If Nin holds their sales lead for the next couple of years, I wouldn't expect them to do much of anything prior to '13, if they start to slide then I could see them making a move in late '12 barring them crashing like a meteor in the near future(which is extremely unlikely).
For MS and Sony they tie to closely to each other to figure out one without the other. If Sony's price drop fails to increase its' sales rate versus MS(extremely unlikely) then I could see them prepping a new round for '12 at the earliest. If this did happen, I would expect MS to plan to launch at the same time as Sony, feeling confident in how they fared this generation to go toe to toe with Sony on an even launch schedule. If Sony manages to slightly outpace MS's sales rate(which is likely at least, globally the two systems were almost tied prior to the PS3 price drop rumors) and Sony slowly catches up to MS then I wouldn't be shocked to see MS working on hitting a '12 launch window but without Sony. The amount of R&D Sony sunk into the PS3 unless it ends up an absolute failure I see them wanting to hit '13 at least with the PS3 as their halo product. If Sony sees a massive sales spike and they quickly surpass MS on a global basis(very unlikely) then I could see MS moving to quickly get a new system out the door in the '11 timeframe, with Sony likely trying to push until at least '13 before getting a new system out(Sony would be rather arrogant if they managed to easily surpass MS when the prices got close, although this isn't likely to happen).
You could bet safe money that these systems are all in the design phases already, a good deal of where their targets are should be fairly obvious by this time next year(end of next year at the latest). I would expect Nin to stick with comparable designs to their current hardware- it would make it relatively trivial(in very relative terms of course) to hit with a HD Wii in short order. Sony and MS are both likely to follow along their same general design philosophy also, if they both stick with their respective vendors for CPUs and GPUs then they could push an updated system out the door in a relatively short period of time(in terms of from when they nail down final specifications to shipping, the core platform is well into the design phase by now).
So I guess in summation my answer to the OP question would be, it depends
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