I believe Nintendo sat on the Game Boy Advance for more than a year when Game Boy Color had such astounding sales.

But didn't Nintendo recently say that they have even completed development on a new piece of hardware, and just totally scrapped because they don't need it yet? When the Wii experience can be so easily changed and extended with new controllers, it could take a long time before the software folks ask for something new.

And I'm pretty sure that along with the comment this article highlights, Iwata said they will have new hardware in "3, 5 or 8 years," whenever the software folks need it. I think Nintendo feels they will probably still have new ideas for Wii for the next several years.

Basically all three are currently buying as much duct-tape as they can :P

And yeah, all the big 3 started work on teir next console as soon as work finished on the current consoles.

Also, some of the lines of the OP are misquotations. As an example, Iwata said that the new Wii would come out 'when developers can no longer make surprises' on the Wii. The line in the OP is twisting those words to mke it sound like Iwata was talking about graphics, and when a developer made the best graphics the Wii was capable of the sucessor would come out