Actually I take back what I stated earlier, we should not have a next gen till we see a graphical leap like what happened with SNES to N64!

Yes!!!!

But please, 2012 at the absolute earliest. I think Natal and Move should extend the lives of those systems, and the Wii is doing fantastic. No need for new systems in the next 2.5 years. The longer they wait, the cheaper they will be(to make anyway), and they will be better due to more time being worked on them.

I'd like to add to my previous statements that one reason we need a next gen is simply because the model for this gen was build entirely on extremes. The 'HD consoles' trying to capture third parties and 'push the envelope' graphically with no real plan for the future....and Nintendo who was trying to 'go in a new direction' and seemingly got lucky...but had no plan or room for third parties to join in the fun.

We desperately need a new gen just to fix this huge divide between console gaming or else it'll just keep growing farther and farther apart each year.  But I also fear that next gen might be a repeat of this gen.  And the effects of such a trend could be devastating....

A new gen can't come soon enough. The longer the wait, the worse for the console games industry.

Both the HD systems could use more Ram... A more powerful GPU would be helpful as well. The 360 needs Blu-ray, the PS3 needs a faster Blu-Ray drive. The Wii needs more power and a HD upgrade. So yes, we need new systems if you want to see a jump in quality instead of incremental steps.

For the developers sake, I don't want to see a new system before the holiday season of 2012. There has been a lot of quality titles not breaking even this generation. I'd like to see them make some money before they start bleeding again.

I'd like to see next-gen in 2012 (@ the earliest).

and PC gamers will get games that actually use the hardware for a year lol. Thats what you really want isn't it console ports that actually would look as good as they could on the PC for a entire year...

It appears this gen can't give full effect to the implementation of 3D gaming. Given 3D gaming is where at least some parts of the industry wants to go there will need to be at least one more console generation.

I do think the time between console generations should lengthen though. It's pretty evident that there is more juice to squeeze out of the PS3 and 360 at least (Alan Wake should show developers that there's untapped potential still in the 360, developers already know that the PS3 hasn't been nearly tapped out), and there is probably plenty of life in the Wii yet. So I think for gaming in general it would be a shame for the next console generation to start before 2013 and preferrably 2014.

I think it may depend on whether any or all of the consoles start seeing a substatial drop in HW sales in 2011 or 2012. But it seems there's still plenty of selling potential left in all 3 consoles, and all 3 consoles are selling at levels that developers would see as healthy enough to continue supporting with new games that will turn a profit.

ha 50/50 split in the votes seems that the gaming community is split over this issue.

Not till 5 more years.