It's not only the abandoned Portables it's their investment into VR which in the current format was always doomed to be a niche product in Japan. 

If the same investment was made into the Vita they could have probably prolonged its life in Japan, maybe retaining exclusivity for some AA games. The only Sony-published game on the Vita after 2014 was Minecraft. They published around 30 games on PSVR between 2016-2019 WW, which means at least a decent investment from their end outside of the hardware R&D. For comparison on the PSVita according to Gameslibrary has 25 games that SCE published. 

I understand that Sony probably felt that VR better aligns with their media strategy, but it's basically what I felt replaced their portable gaming line and wasn't even as successful as the Vita, let alone well aligned to their third-party partners in Japan. This is why in the near future we might see smaller devs completely forsake PS5 versions of their games, simply put since 2015 Sony's strategy is in a different direction - the fact that they disbanded Sony Japan also probably cost them a bunch of relationships build and fostered over the years.  

The VR side is aligned with the Ps4 focus and helped, strengthen the brand. But the cost is abandoned the portable scene. 

The PS4 released during the early years of the WiiU and 3DS.  The PS5 released during the prime of the Switch.

I mean there wasn't much released this year on the PS4/PS5, and what did release didn't exactly set the World on fire. 

Resident Evil Village is the only game that combined across the two SKUs will probably end up above 250K, Nier Replicant might end up close to 200K(still 40K away), Samurai Warriors 5 is in third place and might leg it's way to close to 100K, beyond that we have a Scarlet Nexus which is currently below 50K across it's two SKUs, Biomutant at around 35K sales, nothing outside of these games is confirmed to have even surpassed 30K physical. 

Demon Slayer is still unknown as it's too far from release but pre-orders so far don't lead me to believe it's going to be a huge hit, lets say it somhow ends up above 200K. Next we have Tales of Arise, lets say that it's the second or third best selling game on the ecosystem this year and reaches 200K across it's two SKUs, Lost Judgement doesn't fuel me with high hopes it's likely 150K at best.  Beyond those Idolmaster, Forbidden West, PS5 version of Ghost of Tsushima, Battlefield etc.. not sure any of those should be expected to surpass 100K, 

So we are looking at around 1.5 million across the 12 best selling titles for the year. On average lets say that the rest of the Top 30 manages 50K, that's below 2.5 million and I'm being generous. 

At the same time PS3 alone was selling 2 million software among its top 10 titles in 2015, PS4 also managed 2 million and PSV was just below at 1.86 million, if we look at each of those devices Top 30 we would likely end up with a higher result than what we would get this year across the PS4/PS5. 

When we look at the Top 30 PS4 games by the end of Q3 last year they had managed nearly 4 million and Call of Duty: Black Ops, Cyberpunk 2077,  Shin Megami Tensei III, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla,  Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, FIFA 21, Watch Dogs: Legion, Atelier Ryza 2 all managed to surpass 50K in the final Quarter. Right now for Q4 we know about a handful of games, the biggest of which is Demon Slayer. 

Top 30 PS4 Games Q1-Q3 2020:

1. Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix) - 932.821
2. Ghost of Tsushima (Sony) - 399.370
3. Resident Evil 3 (Capcom) - 258.676
4. Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon (Sega) - 243.769
5. The Last of Us Part II (Sony) - 222.943
6. eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 (Konami) - 180.243
7. Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. MaxiBoost On (Bandai Namco) - 161.014
8. Nioh 2 (Koei Tecmo) - 156.772
9. Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers (Atlus) - 149.898
10. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (Bandai Namco) - 149.654
11. Trials of Mana (Square Enix) - 133.593
12. One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (Bandai Namco) - 131.315
13. Granblue Fantasy Versus (Cygames) - 111.094
14. The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki (Nihon Falcom) - 96.140
15. Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris (Bandai Namco) - 85.010
16. Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers (Atlus) - 65.653
17. Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne (Capcom) - 63.322
18. Grand Theft Auto V: Premium Online Edition (Take-Two) - 54.860
19. Marvel's Avengers (Square Enix) - 54.373
20. eFootball Winning Eleven 2021 Season Update (Konami) - 35.996
21. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Sony) - 34.820
22. Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 (Koei Tecmo) - 33.644
23. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Square Enix) - 33.203
24. Remnant: From the Ashes (DMM Games) - 26.670
25. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (Atlus) - 20.050
26. Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story (Spike Chunsoft) - 17.599
27. Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions (Bandai Namco) - 16.822
28. Fairy Tail (Koei Tecmo) - 15.344
29. Neptunia Virtual Stars (Compile Heart) - 12.331
30. Bayonetta & Vanquish (Sega) - 11.312

TOTAL: 3.908.338

3DS was doing pretty well in Japan in 2014 wasn't it?

It was the top console at the time (In Japan) with about 1/2 consoles being sold being a 3DS

8/10 of the top 10 (other 2 were wii u)

2014 Top 100 Console Breakdown

3DS:39

PS3:29

PSV:14

WIU:10

PS4:8

2015 Top 100 Console Breakdown

3DS:45

PS4:18

PS3:14

PSV:13

WIU:9

Wii:1

This really highlights how massive the Switch is doing in software sales in Japan now.  The PS4 launched with a number of competitors at the time and was able to poke through a few times in 2014.  When looking at the weekly sales back in summer '14, the PS4 at least charted FIFA 14 and one or two other titles per week.  The PS5, on the other hand, can't even get FIFA on the charts past all the Switch evergreens.

PS5 games failure to chart doesn't have much to do with Switch though.

Top 30 back then, the entry to top 30 was around 1500-2000 sales or higher. Top 30 right now happens to be 1500 as well. Same barrier of entry, Switch or not.

Just noticed the highest ranked non-Switch game is number 18, bequeathing the entire top 17 games to one platform.

That must be close to a record, at least in the last three generations.

Didn't the Switch have the top 27 before?