With PlayStations 1-3, Sony developed their consoles using the same mentality. Develop entirely custom-made hardware designed to do impressive graphics and engines, use a new media format to leverage said hardware, and then use said format as a trojan horse for other types of media. The PlayStation had the CD format, along with its then impressive 3D graphics. The PlayStation 2 had the Emotion Engine combined with the DVD format, and the PlayStation 3 had its Cell processor with the Blu-Ray format. While Sony built machines with impressive tech, it often came at the cost of ease of use for developers. The PlayStation 3 in particular, was an overly complex pain in the ass to work with thanks to its completely foreign architecture, which combined with other things, resulted in its infamous $599 US Dollar launch price.
With the PlayStation 4, Sony went in with a different mindset. Instead of building a lot of impressive custom tech, they instead focused on getting the most out of cheaper, off-the-shelf hardware that was simple, and easy to use. While the PS4 was pretty run-of-the mill in terms of specs, this strategy never the less paid off, with the PS4 being far more profitable than the massive money sink the PS3 was.
Now we're at the PlayStation 5 and for this generation, Sony from what's been known so far, is going for a middle ground between the PS1-3 and the PS4 mentalities. Like the PS4, the PS5 is built on the same, off-the-shelf x86 architecture that powered its predecessor. It's cheap and its common. However, it's everything surrounding that architecture that sort of goes back to the PS1-3 era of building impressive custom technology, notably with the heavily customized SSD I/O and the Tempest 3D audio tech. It's a solid compromise between the "build the most impressive machine on the market" approach of the first 3 PlayStations, and the "lateral thinking, withered technology" approach of the PlayStation 4. But this is just my observation.
