I think its more of a trend we saw across gaming, there's much fewer releases but the games we do get are bigger and bigger. Sony saw an increase in sales per game that was probably above average, and I think that's maily due to being the only ones in the market delivering these huge budget story focused games. And with every release Sony's reputation for them grew and grew.
It didn't happen before because Sony went for variety rather than mainly focusing on one style of game, and instead of building a reputation for one thing they had no reputation for anything, any success was an isolated case due to one strong brand (GT) or studio (ND). The #1 thing Sony did this gen was get more public and promote themselves, the rapid rise of streaming and events like E3 shows helped a lot with that, and now Sony games feel like one brand. Yes, devs like ND still stand out but now people expect that kind of quality from everything Sony does. This isn't really a unique thing to Sony though, the same is happening with other publishers.
The PS studios branding now will only amplify this, and allows them to expand into more genres again, as they can slap that PS studios seal of approval on the game and people will know.
All this being said, I don't think Sony really have done much. Mostly I'm arguing its just the way the industry is going. In fact, compared to the sales growth that Nintendo franchises are seeing on the Switch, PS4 isn't even that impressive. Anyway, if you look at it case by case:
-ND are just continuing to grow with each game and they've now pretty much reached a peak.
-GT is still huge, if anything it declined.
-God of War was again just a gradual rise in the franchise, Ascension was a massive debut for Sony, but GOW 2018 became a record setter due to being an incredible game and having crazy good WOM.
-Spider-Man was a big budget Spider-Man game and came out at the peak of Sony's advertising pull, this combined to a huge opening and then it was an amazing game so great legs. This phenomenon could have happened with or without Sony's growth though and with or without Sony as the publisher, Spidey is Spidey.
-Guerrilla is the one true crazy success story I would say, and the last couple posts here covered it well. They are the one studio that had a massive jump in sales and quality.
-The rest all just saw the average growth you might expect due to the industry and Sony's bigger presence and ability to hype games with the rise of streaming and YT.
It didn't happen before because Sony went for variety rather than mainly focusing on one style of game, and instead of building a reputation for one thing they had no reputation for anything, any success was an isolated case due to one strong brand (GT) or studio (ND). The #1 thing Sony did this gen was get more public and promote themselves, the rapid rise of streaming and events like E3 shows helped a lot with that, and now Sony games feel like one brand. Yes, devs like ND still stand out but now people expect that kind of quality from everything Sony does. This isn't really a unique thing to Sony though, the same is happening with other publishers.
The PS studios branding now will only amplify this, and allows them to expand into more genres again, as they can slap that PS studios seal of approval on the game and people will know.
All this being said, I don't think Sony really have done much. Mostly I'm arguing its just the way the industry is going. In fact, compared to the sales growth that Nintendo franchises are seeing on the Switch, PS4 isn't even that impressive. Anyway, if you look at it case by case:
-ND are just continuing to grow with each game and they've now pretty much reached a peak.
-GT is still huge, if anything it declined.
-God of War was again just a gradual rise in the franchise, Ascension was a massive debut for Sony, but GOW 2018 became a record setter due to being an incredible game and having crazy good WOM.
-Spider-Man was a big budget Spider-Man game and came out at the peak of Sony's advertising pull, this combined to a huge opening and then it was an amazing game so great legs. This phenomenon could have happened with or without Sony's growth though and with or without Sony as the publisher, Spidey is Spidey.
-Guerrilla is the one true crazy success story I would say, and the last couple posts here covered it well. They are the one studio that had a massive jump in sales and quality.
-The rest all just saw the average growth you might expect due to the industry and Sony's bigger presence and ability to hype games with the rise of streaming and YT.