Consider late gen support. PS1 had support unprecedented after PS2 launch and this lead to the best selling console ever. PS3 launch was a disaster for Sony, but even still it sold better when compared year for year against the 360, PS2 still had stellar support. Now consider late 2011-2013, MS and Nintendo doing nothing for the legacy consoles but Sony is even releasing their biggest franchise on their OLD console AFTER the launch of the new console. PS3 had great first party support and it translated to some good PS4 sales, other consoles blunders non withstanding.

Now the gamecube to Wii to Wii U. Gamecube wasn't getting too much support but it did get a last hurrah with a good zelda game and the Wii went on to be a success, but probably is the exception. Wii support in 2010-2012 sucked and it carried over to the Wii U which became a very low selling console.

Xbox to 360 to XB1. Same story as Nintendo. Xbox had some goodwill from Halo 2 and the shooter community so 360 naturally does better in the shooter generation. 360 support in 2011-2013 sucked from MS and they expected the XB1 to do well enough while alienating their consumer base...

Kinda hard to buy into this when the XB1 is selling on par or better than the 360. I know MS fucked up, but in all honesty they aren't selling much worse (at least for the most part) than they did last gen. The PS4 is just selling much better than it did last gen.

As for nintendo, i think if everyone were being honest with themselves we all know nintendo doesn't really compete in the same space that sony and MS does... even though they are all selling gaming consoles. Eg... someone ging to buy a PS4/XB1 will be doing so for a number of reasons. They wouldn't get to a store and then decide that they might as well buy a nintendo console or vice versa.

Sony didn't retake anything. To retake something you have to lose it first.

I don't think Sony did anything special at all.

If Microsoft hadn't released an anemic machine with a packed in Kinect and an awful announcement message I think this generation would have looked a lot like the last.

What I mean by that is a huge NA lead for MS with a huge EU/ASIA lead for Sony but pretty much equal overall.

Lucky for Sony this meant they didn't have to do anything above and beyond what they did with the PS3.

Hell, they even made their online service $50/yr with a bump to $60 for no reason, didn't allow us to use external hard drives for the first 3 years, gave us an awful launch lineup with nothing good to follow for the first 12 months, didn't allow us the option of EA Access and they are STILL outselling the competition 2:1.

Seriously, what is Sony doing better now than they did 5 years ago?

Sony doesn't give a shit about their customers and they don't have to because their competition is so incompetent.

If you look at sales for these exclusives, seems people don't really give a crap about most of them. Or the metascore, either.

2014: Infamous
2015: Disgaea 5? Tearaway I guess, though it's a remake of a Vita game. And, Bloodborne.
2016: What counts as "AA"? Does "Score Rush Extended" count? Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted 4.
2017: Gravity Rush 2, Yakuza 0, Horizon, Nioh.

What am I missing that bridges this 11 vs 19 gap? Seems you're including games that are on other platforms or I am just missing some. Do some of these wonky Japanese titles count as "AA"? Wtf is AA, lol. What's the difference between say, a AA game and an indie game? Either way, the PS4 didn't get its real big heavy hitters exclusive wise until we were like.. halfway into 2016, and it had long been blowing the Xbone away in sales by that time. The sales dominance began long before any exclusives worth pointing to were out.

Your PC list seemed awfully low and this just confirms how pointless it is to argue about what counts as a "AA" title. I counted like 10 titles I would consider to be big games just in 2014 for PC, but you have 10 for 2014-2017 combined. There's really no competing with the PC when it comes to quality exclusives.

Anyway as for the question posed in the thread I'd say a combination of Sony being safe and smart plus their competition doing terrible jobs. The Wii U was a horrible console, which I say as someone who owns one, and the Xbox reveal pretty much killed the Xbox brand for this gen.

Sony and its fans should really thank Microsoft and especially Nintendo. It's hard to screw up as bad as they did and to make your competitor look that appealing.

1-Well thought throughout hardware design
2-Clear message (system for gamers, no distractions)
3-GAMES!!! (great AAA in house developers)
4-Mark Cerny
5-Price
6-Rinse and repeat with PS4pro

Helps when shit's not 600 dollars.

Is all about MARKETING!!.. Sony is right now the best company in the market (for marketing and ads) of videogames...

PS learned two main things. The large majority of focus MUST be on gaming and the price has to be affordable enough at launch. Whatever you can pack into that shell for that price, is what the console ends up being, period. Worry about everything else (media related) later.

The true reason why PS regained their market share is mostly because XB did the exact same thing PS did, leading up to the PS3.

If you watch the XB E3 shows from OGXB to XB1, you can clearly see how much more comfortable and confident they are on stage, year after year, and announcing new peripherals and software, even though it didn't exactly fit the console model at that point in time. They even said some things that would get them crucified in today's world, just like what happened at E3 2013. They got away with it though because for the most part, they weren't forcing anything on their customers. It was all optional.

They clearly decided things were going so well for 360 and Live, and things were going so "poorly" for PS3 and PSN, that they could bring out their own "PS3", and continue their steady domination of the console space. Which wasn't much different than PS, considering they both wanted to own the living room and basically have an all in "One" computing device.

When PS tried to do this with PS3, they failed because they kept their main focus on gaming, but that new tech, power hungry mindset, led to a price that was just too high for consumers to swallow at launch with all of the physical/digital media features bundled in.

When XB tried this with XB1, their focus was more balanced overall, and probably would have worked since the price was borderline, BUT, in comparison to PS4's stronger hardware and lower price, it made the XB1 look too weak from a gamers perspective.

If the PS4 had launched with the same hardware as the XB1, even with a lower price ($349), the negative reaction to XB1 probably wouldn't have been quite as bad, and the sales gap probably wouldn't be near as big either.

It's mostly XB's fault, but PS did do some things right. That combo is the reason PS4 is dominating XB1.