They pushed back the lifespan of the gen post-E3. Sony decided to and then Microsoft followed suit.

PS4? 720? 2011, 2012? Surely they jest? this gen has just begun!

Going by history alone is folly at this point.  See my original post (look for the Atari2600 ET in my Avatar).  Finances, third parties, and massive financial losses endured by almost every company in the industry made the transition to this generation harder than pretty much all the previous ones.  The technological leap and cost of development far out-paced the number of consumers interested in hardcore high-def gaming.  I'm sure it looked good last gen as the PS2 managed to reach over 100 million consumers, but then again, the PS2 was also heavily promoted as a DVD player at the time DVD players and DVD's were becoming cheaper and were finally usurping ye olde VHS.  The PS2 was last-generation's casual console and it appealed to more than just gamers, which is why it sold so well.

The PS3 is not seeing the same success for more reasons than just it's initially, and generally still, high price.  It also "out-teched" the casual fanbase the PS2 held.  Blu-Ray is not seen as the big important leap that DVD was, and in fact, the average consumer really doesn't see any kind of real difference.  HD TV's are only now catching on, but 1080 is still not the norm by any stretch of the imagination.  An incremental change is also the problem with the gaming industry:  To Joe Blow and Flo Housewife, the Xbox360 and PS3 are simply overly complicated, more expensive versions of the same old stuff.  The controllers are still too big and buttony and scary.  

Despite the generally mild learning curve in control for games (which is essentially identical to last gen on the HD consoles), the learning curve for everything else (namely, graphics, complex high-tech hardware, and cost) was ramped way up.  Because of that, this is the most expensive all-around new console generation we've ever had.  The Xbox360, PS3 and even the Wii all cost more at retail than their previous counterparts.  Cost of production on the HD machines shot up like a bullet--doubling or even tripling already high-cost productions from the previous generation.  And industry growth, aside from the DS or Wii, was too slow to make back that money for the vast majority of developers.  It's why Final Fantasy XIII is now a multi-platform title. 

Rushing the next generation based on old timescales will only make things worse, and you can bet that with as long as it's taking for 3rd party devs and publishers to turn real profits this time, they're going to be extremely cautious about jumping on-board "yet another" generation too soon.  If Microsoft is actually stupid enough to rush a new console out in another 2 years, all they'll end up releasing is the Xbox Saturn.  A system shunned by 3rd party devs due to asinine decisions by the console maker.

Ive only had my PS3 a year! 2011 makes it 4 years! Thats ridiculous! If the PS4 was to come out before 2013 i will...switch sides!

What 'colonelstubbs wants' or the technology available doesn't really factor into when a new console is released ...

The videogame market is an oligopoly which means that each of the participants in the market bases their strategy in response to the strategy of their competition. As we have seen in the past, it is a very bad idea to leave your competition on the market for too long before bringing a new system to market that is in direct competition to it; one of the primary reasons why the Playstation was so dominant over the N64, and the PS2 was so dominant over the XBox and Gamecube, was they had an 18 month lead (only dealing with weak competition) to build a userbase and secure third party support before their competition came to market. At the same time the market tends to start rejecting the more minor competitors after 4 or 5 years, and they soon start to see a very rapid death.

With this in mind, some time 2009 it will become fairly obvious to one of the manufacturers that their third party support will start to decline in 2010 and they will not be able to support their system much past the begining of 2011 and they will be highly motivated to release a new console in 2010/2011; at this point in time they will begin to move their R&D from the early design/planning stage to producing a final product for their next console and prepare its release. Within a couple of months of this move the other two manufacturers will start to look at the rumors and public announcements about their competitions' systems and formalize their upcomming systems; the latest they would release their system is 12 months after the first mover.

The dark side or the wii side.

I jest of course.

Your logic is heavily flawed.  The Saturn and Dreamcast were out well before the Playstation and PS2, respectively, and that didn't put them in the Number 1 slot.  The Genesis was also out two years before the SNES, and the SNES ended up with almost twice the userbase.  The Xbox360 hit the market first this generation and lost the number one slot to the Wii.

Being first means nothing and by now, everyone in the industry should understand that.  Just as making the most powerful hardware means nothing as, traditionally, the most powerful hardware is never the top selling console.

The Atari2600 dominated over more powerful rivals such as ColecoVision, and trounced earlier arrivals like the Fairchild Channel F.

The NES trounced the more powerful Master System and TurboGrafx-16.

The SNES usurped the earlier-released Genesis (and to an extent, the TurboGrafx), and vastly outsold the more powerful Jaguar and Neo-Geo.

The Playstation annhilated the earlier released Saturn and 3DO, and sales-wise, crushed the more powerful N64.

The Playstation 2 crushed the earlier released Dreamcast and controlled the market over the more powerful Xbox and GameCube.

Coming to market first does not guarantee success by any stretch of the imagination.
Developing the most powerful hardware does not guarantee success by any stretch of the imagination.

First off, Sega's reaction in the market and their competitions reaction to Sega was a little different than what we would see today ...

Sega released the Sega CD, followed by the Sega 32x, and then did a "Surprise" release of the Sega Saturn at $500 with no games, so its not that surprising that the 12 month lead it had over the Playstation didn't lead to its dominance; after all this failed hardware, the Saturn's software not being carried by major US retailers, and major third party publishers (EA) refusal to produce any games for the Dreamcast even die-hard Sega fans wouldn't buy the system.

My argument wasn't that releasing a console first leads to its dominance (by the way), it was that none of the console manufacturers would wait 2 years to release a console to compete with a new console that actually can threaten their position within the market; in particular if their console has already had an acceptably long life (5 or 6 years).

Wth there isnt going to be a new xbox microsoft said they are going to make a new console entirely... or at least thats what i thought

Oh you do'nt have a link to that by any chance.