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Hirai cautions against early conclusions

Says a mainstream audience is fickle.

Sony Computer Entertainment boss Kaz Hirai has suggested that Microsoft and Nintendo still operate with a traditional "five-year life cycle" mentality, and he believes that attempts to attract a new audience must be handled delicately.

"If you go mainstream too quickly and don't support the core gaming audience then you lack the pillar to support your platform. Without this pillar you end up with a fickle audience that might be big but will probably move on," Hirai told The Guardian.

"This is fine if you're looking at a five-year life cycle like all of our competitors, even looking back in history, have always done. The new console comes out and the old one is immediately disregarded."

Hirai also said that judging the success of PlayStation 3 after two years is "premature", because Sony has a (drumroll) 10-year plan for the console.

"For other consoles which have a five-year life cycle it is much easier to judge performance after two years," he added, perhaps unaware of Shane Kim's comments last week, when he said he "firmly believes" the Xbox 360 will keep going until 2015.

Sony and Microsoft both unveiled new motion-sensing technology at E3. Sony's uses a prototype wand controller that has internal sensors and a dome tracked by the PlayStation Eye.

Kaz Hirai is "confident" about the wand, and said publishers are "very excited" about what they saw. What about Microsoft's hands-free effort, Kaz?

"Look at the EyeToy: we've had phenomenal success with that on PS2. If Microsoft decides they want to do that for 360 then great, that's fantastic," he said.