Geldorn on 04 August 2008
R&D can take a very long time, especially if you don't want to go broke doing it. Starting now can mean anything from releasing early to spreading out the cost over more years.
Besides, we don't know how long they plan their R&D cycles for anyway. For all we know Sony spends the better part of five years on R&D. Which, considering the time between the PS1 and PS2 does not seem out of the question.
On a side note, I'm always rather amused at the assertions made on this site regarding innovation and evolution. See, the PS3 is indeed a 'more powerful and more featured PS2'. That does not mean there was little or no innovation though. The concepts behind the machine (Cell for one) are really quite advanced and a thorough break away from existing technology.
The truth is of course that all console builders innovate, they just innovate in different ways - Sony is best at thinking up exotic hardware platforms (apart from the PS1 pretty much all they've done in the console area was way out there), Microsoft does wonderful stuff in the online sphere and Nintendo innovates brilliantly in the user interface department.