I dunno when it's coming, nor do I really care yet. However, I am still agonizing over it anyway. After this past generation, with RRoD's, PS3's breaking and getting replaced (for a LARGE fee) with crappier non-backwards compatible versions, and Wii support being abandoned so quickly, I think a few of us will be making our purchases with much hesitation and anxiety. 
I already know what I'm buying, but the question is when? It's undisputed that buying a console right out of the gate is the most expensive and least rewarding time to do so. Everyone's launch 360 broke. My buddy paid $800 for his PS3 at launch and it broke and they charged him 300 bucks to fix it. That put him at over a grand within the first year of launch. It also makes him a dumbass but that's beside the point haha

Technology is getting shittier at the same rate it's getting powerful. I think it was around 3 years in before they finally fixed the RRoD thing. How long until they get the new generation to work as advertised? 4 years? I would hope that with all the time they have to prepare they'd be able to ship hardware that works, but you can't trust them to do that. 

Then there's the thing I'm even more worried about. Digital content. I've probably blown a cool grand on downloadable crap so far. Will all my XBL Arcade games work with my new console? What about games like SSF4:AE, or Rock Band that I'll certainly still be playing next gen? Will my DLC still work? My controllers?

For all we know they may not even have disc drives, so there may not be backwards compatibility at all. I'm not the type to keep old consoles laying around, so without backwards compatibility my entire game library is rendered useless. The reason I speculate there may be no disc drives is twofold. One, some dude from MS gave me the idea in the first place. Two, I read that L.A. Noire fills en entire BluRay. If BluRay is already that close to being obsolete, why the hell would they use it in a few years? 

Back to my original question of when to buy one. Well, I know I'll buy one within the first year, and I know it won't be on launch because there won't be any games. So I guess the real question here is, how much will I regret purchasing a next generation console?

Anyway, this is just the crap I think about. It's also the crap I expect them to think about if they want me to hand over hundreds of dollars in 2 or 3 years.