I remember next-gen being used since I was young for the shift from the SNES - N64. As Doug already pointed out. Although, I'm sure it was the same for 8-16bit era.
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Most techniques described as "next gen" already are present-gen or even last-gen. New technologies are in the making like id-Software are doing. But using a shader well known from old games like Doom3 is not next-gen anymore. Doom3 is from August 2004. This is over 3 years old
Fully agree with this. I always find it a bit funny to hear someone arguing about some console games being next gen or not based on normalmapping or a different "special" shader. It really shouldn't be this, but instead just to explain that bundle A of consoles is newer than bundle B of consoles, therefore, I would believe the Wii to be next gen because it is the next iteration from a major console maker. But, then again, I don't really know what next-gen means anymore, as it's used to explain so many things now. 
