Someone else would have filled the void. Sony wasn't so much "innovative" as they were in the right place at the right time... Past consoles had attempted to take their approach and it hadn't worked (was still too expensive) until it was clear the age of the optical drive/DVD player had arrived and Nintendo had cold feet (didn't hurt that they were more friendly with 3rd party developers either).

I see no reason why Microsoft wouldn't have eventually entered the fray, and I don't exactly follow how the Playstation was needed for "innovation"... If by some miracle Sega had survived into and through the dreamcast we were just fine, and Nintendo is always willing to experiment. Microsoft, meanwhile, either would have continued working with sega or filled the rest of the void left by Sony.

Really though, there's no way someone wouldn't have filled the void. Besides, while Video Gaming is more mainstream than ever and is worth more than ever (which I like), the consoles continue to become less and less unique as they charge towards the LCD (can hardly tell the Playstation and Xbox apart at this point). Still, while I myself am satisfied with the selection of games and where the industry is, the industry would have found its way forward without Sony.

basicly one console from multiple manufactures was he dream of the big 3rd partys for ages... sony/m$ 3DO is near...

Without Sony the console business would have died quickly. After gen 6 of would be very small and the budget necessary for gen 7 wouldn't even be made available. Short story gen 8 wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Sony and co, or perhaps Nintendo only, but I wouldn't call that improvement of any sort.

Nintendo wouldn't have saved the industry, with their ridiculous demands many publishers would step over to pc abandoning Nintendo is inevitable. They handle handhelds the right way, but Sony is the face of consolegaming especially bringing indie and smaller digital games to consoles was smart.

Sony gave the alternative for the mainly same old franchises of Nintendo. Even though it where quality titles after the Cube it got to repetitive. Where Sony offered Jack, Crash, God of War, Ratchet, Gran Turismo etc. It was new and fresh like the Wii in some sort of regard which did quite well.

With a continuation of New franchises 3 already this gen and many third party games Sony ensures a safe platform for consolegamers who want to have a console with a huge library.

Some negative effects to consolegaming thnx to Sony. DLC, Season Passes, Digital only, and partially Paid online.

Games series that most likely never would of came into being without playstation....

Tomb Raider
Resident Evil
Silent Hill
Tekken
Dino Crisis
Blood omen: legacy of kain
Twisted Metal
Suikoden
Wild Arms
Persona
Arc The Lad
Armored Core
Air combat aka "Ace Combat"
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy Tactics
Grandia
Alundra

That's all of the ones that I could find at the moment. I agree with the op though.

Doubt it since most of the games would have been made for the n64 and the gaming industry would still continue to grow regardless since the reason the n64 did so bad was due to the ps1. And i think MS would have entered regardless since they would see the sales of the n64 and also realize that they could do things better so I doubt anything would have drastically changed

Yeah their problem at the time was there was no incentive for Nintendo or Sega to jump on that bandwagon and become publishers rather than hardware manufacturers. It appears we'll be skipping that step though... Sony seems to be sprinting towards digital streaming and Nintendo, while they'll keep releasing hardware, is definitely encouraging people to buy digital by underproducing physical media.

Sony didn't innovate on hardware that much especially with the PS2 they brought new types of software and continue to do so. Which is what all Sony innovation is all about for consoles although blu ray and DVD didn't hurt. 

That's ridiculous, someone else would have stepped in eventually (Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.)

It would be just different but we will never know.

Mobile gaming

tomb Raider was a saturn game tat went to PS when they saw that the saturn cant compete with the PS.

FF7 went from n64 to PS because of CD

grandia was a saturn game

and Tekken was a arcade game/ps game and those games went to sega consoles most of the time.

ohh and i have dino Crisis on my DC...

thats all i know, the rest well somebody else should check them i dont care for most of them