Consistency.
/Thread

According to the fans of the other two companies, success for Sony in gaming its been:
- PS1: because of piracy
- PS2: because of cheapest DVD available (even if by 2001 cheapest DVD was $99 and PS2 was $299)
- PS3: Cheapest Bluray available
- PS4: Lucky, Nintendo and MS weren’t even trying.

But just like somebody mentioned above, the consistency made them success, a great example was on the worst years of the PS3 (launch in 2006- September 2009) they still were making games.

Sony is just successful because they make sure to get every game developer on board with their system and they market their system in a way that doesn't at all alienate developers or consumers.

Sony is willing to throw money all over the place to make sure that nearly every developer and game makes it on PlayStation and they're willing to put forth hefty investments for major exclusives, Microsoft does this to some extent especially with the OG Xbox and Xbox 360 however they haven't really tried much to acquire developers or games that appeal to the Japanese crowd, limiting their success in sales globally. Nintendo takes the completely takes the isolation approach by creating a system that fits their needs while ignoring and usually alienating 3rd party developers, which is why Nintendo home consoles don't do as well as Playstation.

Even with the PS3(& somewhat the PS2), which were systems difficult to develop for, Sony made sure to assist their 1st & 3rd party developers with tools and offering a monetary incentive to continue to create High-Budget games, Sony also made sure to trim the fat and cost of manufacturing of the PS3 making the system cheaper and more appealing to consumers, making the PS3 comeback and end the generation strong. Usually the other companies like MS and Nintendo under those circumstances would give up and move onto the next system, as proven with the Xbox and the Wii U, where both companies dropped those systems relatively quickly.

All Playstation systems have (sold) successfully because Sony knows the importance of 1st and 3rd Party games, and Sony generation after generation makes sure that their systems get a consistent stream of both, Nintendo since the N64 have mainly depended on their 1st party titles with little 3rd Party Support while Microsoft especially with the Xbox One has very little 1st party titles and titles that appeal outside of Americans who play the yearly sport/shooters.

Another reason why Playstation consoles are usually successful is Sony's marketing. Before the PS1, while console gaming was always big in the U.S & Japan, Europe and the rest of the world was mainly an untapped market in console gaming as consoles the Sega Genesis/SNES/NES wouldn't sell even 10M units in Europe since marketing and a lack of a real distributor in those countries made console gaming much more niche in those markets. That all changed when the PS1 released where Sony in 1995 had a ton of money to market Playstation in Europe/Other Regions to gain a dominant foothold in those regions, Sony made sure to put the Playstation name all over those regions. MS and even Nintendo to this day struggle to sell as well as Playstation in Europe due to their limited marketing efforts. And as of now Europe currently accounts for the most PS4 sales out of any other region, even North America. Even when I visit poorer, less gaming-orientated countries. I notice it's all Playstation in those areas with very little owning an Xbox or a Nintendo system.

1) The Vita was, in fact, a significant loss.  How do I know?  Because they wouldn't have gotten into the handheld market to begin with if it wasn't significant.  They invested a lot into their handheld lines and lost.  More importantly it shows that Sony cannot survive at the bottom.  Nintendo can.  Whenever Sony gets a loss this bad they have to leave the market behind.  This is why Nintendo has a better long term strategy.

2) Playstation has always used the razor and blades model.  It still uses this model.  They take losses early on to get a lead in marketshare and then get their profits in the rest of the generation.  Or in the PS3's case they took heavy losses early on and never got enough marketshare so the whole generation was a big loss for them.  Their most conservative version of the razor and blades model was actually the PS4.  They lost so much on the PS3 that they were conservative on the power and cost of the PS4, and it made them a ton of money.  It also helped that Nintendo and Microsoft flubbed their launches.  Right now it looks like the PS5 is going to be a powerful console.  They are hoping to take losses early on and win a lot of marketshare like with PS1 and PS2.  It could easily turn against them like it did with PS3 though if they don't win enough market share.  One thing is certain.  If they are releasing an ambitious (pricey) console, then they are not looking to repeat the PS4.  The PS4 was not ambitious.

Subscriptions will not save a failing console.  Subscriptions do legitimately make the PS4 profitable, because it has a lot of marketshare.  Subscriptions are directly proportional to install base though.  They make a successful console succeed more, but they won't save a failing console.  Playstation can still not survive at the bottom.  If they have another PS3 situation they will still lose a lot of money.  If PS5 sells like the Vita...they will have to leave the market.

I doubt their home console market can turn into a Vita situation over the course of one generation though.  Playstation has too much going for it.  However, that doesn't change the fact that Nintendo's strategy is better in the long term.  Nintendo can last through a winter that Sony can't.  Every company has it's share of bad luck.  What happened in the handheld market will eventually repeat in the home market.  Given enough time, Nintendo will permanently come out on top.  

Had you read further into the OP, you would have noticed this paragraph:

"Personally, my general preference is for developers to run wild, which I think is what makes me a bit of an unconventional gamer. I too though carve out exceptions to that rule. I'm closed-minded about Metroid, Castlevania, and the aforementioned Sonic because I don't trust their publishers with those franchises anymore. I think fans should be allowed to make all future installments of those franchises. There's a difference between making something that's from the heart and doing new things just to be doing new things and the Metroid and Sonic franchises have fallen into the latter category in general of late. More largely though, I favor letting developers run wild."

As you can thus see, I was in the process of making a much larger case.

What I meant was that Microsoft makes a habit of aiming for what they call "the premium gamer" and that manifests in them building machines with a heavy focus on raw power. You can trace this instinct from the original Xbox through the Xbox One X and the Series X. There is a general pattern there, and whether it's creating more advanced VR tech or leading the industry on streaming today, I think you can surely see the heart of what I mean.

And you may well be right about the PlayStation 5 being the more alien hardware compared to what Microsoft is using this time around. But I think we'll be able to tell whether developers feel that way by the game offerings we see this coming Friday. I was just voicing what I'm looking for.

In response:

My perspective on the Dreamcast is that Sega made it very creative in terms of its first-party software offerings, which were released in quick succession and often original IPs, some of which (as Jet Grind Radio, Seaman, and Crazy Taxi) could be described as really their own genres. I think the Dreamcast was exceptional in that regard. I mean I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it!

The way I see Nintendo is that these, like from the Wii to the present, they're very focused on winning over people with their specific first-party games and franchises. By this, I mean that they make very unique hardware anymore; hardware that's sufficiently unique to keep the larger development community at bay to a significant extent. They're obviously aiming to compete on their own terms rather than those of their rivals, and the result is that indeed the best-selling games for Nintendo's systems are Nintendo games. You can't say anything analogous for their rivals. There's something that I, and I think a lot of people, find respectable about that. They're not sellouts or go-alongs. They make games for their fans and if other people happen to find that enjoyable then good for them. That seems to be Nintendo's general attitude as an institution anymore. And it's paid off pretty well actually, at least in general.

Nintendo's successes (like the NES, the Wii, and the Switch) are definitely good for gaming overall because they bring in new generations of gamers who then grow up and maybe get more exploratory about the offerings of Nintendo's rivals as they mature and develop a greater interest in more mature themes and contents. (I say that because it's exactly what happened to me back in the day, i.e. my progression from the NES to the Sega Genesis.) Then those adult gamers wind up having kids and maybe want to start them out on material that's family-friendlier, like a Nintendo platform, and the cycle starts over again. I think of them as sort of the Disney of video games that way. (Ya know, Disney makes few R-rated movies, Nintendo makes few M-rated games, and for this reason they're regarded as the family-friendlier brands.) In fact, it's probably not a coincidence that Disney films have been dominating the American movie landscape over the same period of time that we've seen the Switch overtake the competition in rate-of-sale terms in this medium. The two concurrent cultural trends are probably related.

Nintendo's weakness in my mind though is precisely their strength. They mainly make fan-servicy games mostly for kids and families on very unique hardware. I like Nintendo's hardware, but Nintendo's games aren't really my personal preference these days overall, as I'm 38, single, childless, and just someone who really prizes matters of the heart.

Brandpower like apple

Actually the reason Sony have been so sucessfull with Playstation is trust, they earned it with keeping a constant release of games and partnerships and not abandoning their system.
Also on the lack of creativity and taking risk I won't even enter that because I don't want to start a war.

Yes, but you forgot I'm weird.

In all seriousness though, I believe that the storytelling quality of many first-party releases from Sony over the last decade or so and their attitude of allowing their first-party studios a great deal of latitude to make the games they want to make are closely related. The best stories come from the heart. They come from a place of sincerity and a willingness to take risks and maybe say something controversial every once in a while.