if they release innovative technology before their competitors then they're savvvvvvvvvyyyyyy

We can't swear anything for next gen, but this one IMVHO Wii would have got the market and success it got whenever it launched, as competitors just didn't even think that market existed.
If Nintendo keeps on being different and in doing so it finds different things that are appealing for gamers, it could just don't worry about launch time.

Because everyone seems to think the Wii will be the first successful console in history to miraculously drop like a rock in sales all at once, causing Nintendo to release their next console first.

I think it's just wishful thinking. Because it sure isn't logic.

Nintendo would release its next console before Sony and Microsoft if its current console were failing. But there is no sign of this occurring, and thus it makes no business sense to do so.

Then again, they're doing exactly this with the 3DS, and that fact muddies the waters considerably. One would think that Nintendo were smart enough to not cut the knees off of a system at its peak, but this throws the whole idea of Nintendo following common sense into question.

It's actually the most future proof.  Sony and Microsoft had to play catch up with the motion controls, but Nintendo didn't have to play catch up with the pixel count.

Well they are going to release a new DS before psp. Is that good enough? Also unless Sony and MS release a new system before christmas of 2012. Nintendo will be first

But they could do with portables what Sony did with home consoles, keep on selling the old model for some years after the launch of the next.

Maybe they want to give 3DS the lead in portable 3D, but they know that for some time they'll have to price it too high to be mainstream, maybe the overprice is modest but they know a consistent share of users won't be willing to pay it not caring for 3D, who knows...

If Nintendo is trying to do with portables what Sony did with consoles, then Nintendo is being even more foolish than I had thought. Maintaining the PS2 may well have kept Sony alive during the PS3's dismal early history, but it was also part of the cause for that history in the first place: it took away much of Sony fans' reason to upgrade. The 3DS will suffer similarly if Nintendo keeps the DS around. When you transition from one system to the next, the break has to be a clean one.

The DS didn't suffer from Nintendo still supporting the GBA after its release.

The people that say Nintendo is going to launch first are the same ones that said the DS and Wii were a fad. In other words, they don't have a firm grip on reality.