TOKYO--Don't hold your breath for the fifth-generation PlayStation.

Sony Corp. wants to spend three more years readying its next videogame move, the head of the PlayStation business said Wednesday. That would mark a slight slowdown in the six-to-seven-year update cycle for the console since the first one in 1994. The PlayStation 4 went on sale in 2013 and has sold more than 79 million units.

"We will use the next three years to prepare the next step, to crouch down so that we can jump higher in the future," said Tsuyoshi "John" Kodera, who took over last October.

Mr. Kodera spoke a day after Sony's new chief executive, Kenichiro Yoshida, released his first three-year business plan. It included a conservative forecast for the videogame business, seeing operating profit in the final fiscal year of the plan, ending March 2021, slightly lower than the $1.6 billion it made in the year ended March 2018.

Sony has been shifting its PlayStation focus from hardware to online subscription services, including a $60 annual package that includes games and multiplayer features. That service, PlayStation Plus, had 34 million users as of March, fitting the new CEO's goal of adding revenue sources that are more stable than volatile hardware and software sales.

Speaking to a small group of reporters, Mr. Kodera said the network-services side of PlayStation is changing the way Sony thinks about product introductions.

"We need to depart from the traditional way of looking at the console life cycle," he said. "We're no longer in a time when you can think just about the console or just about the network like they're two different things."

Mr. Kodera said the company is looking at ways to better incorporate mobility into the PlayStation, traditionally a living-room console. Nintendo Co.'s popular Switch machine can be used both in the home and as a portable device.

Sony sells the hand-held PlayStation Vita, but Mr. Kodera said that when it comes to mobility, the company doesn't want to limit itself to a single dedicated device. "We need a broader perspective than that because so many things are now connected via the internet," he said.

One challenge for Sony is competing against companies with broader subscription offerings in entertainment, such as Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc.

Mr. Yoshida, the CEO, said in a separate group interview that PlayStation's subscription services provide valuable consumer-spending data. He said PlayStation Vue, an internet television service in the U.S. that has struggled to match Amazon and Netflix, is bringing in useful user data and Sony had no plans to shut it down.

Write to Takashi Mochizuki at takashi.mochizuki@wsj.com