One thing I find interesting about PS1 & PS4 (the one that started the dominance and the one that regained the dominance) is that neither really did anything special and in many ways benefited more from the competition messing up rather than from doing anything great themselves.
PS1 & PS4 are/were moderately powerful, reasonably priced, easy to develop for, and feature solid multimedia features for their time. Nothing extraordinary but at the same time does nothing wrong, here's the competition for comparison
Saturn-expensive which angered gamers, hard to develop for which angered develpers, surprise launch which angered retailers who weren't included, basically angered everybody.
N64-went with cartridges instead of CD
Wii U-underpowered and uses different architecture compared to competitors
Xbox One-expensive launch price, bad PR (Kinect required, always online, no used games)
Sony kinda went with standard, run of the mill consoles while the competition shot themselves in the foot.
When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.
