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Major publishing houses are discontinuing their support for thePlayStation 4, but what was it that contributed to the console’s success and how much of it was due to chance rather than good judgment.

It is often said that each person experiences two deaths: the first when their body ceases to function, and the second when the last person speaks their name. A comparable situation occurs with video game consoles. The PlayStation 4 was discontinued in March 2024, but its second demise will occur when the final game is launched for the platform. As this moment will likely be marked by an obscure independent game or low-quality software, the more widely recognized end arrives when major publishers cease developing titles for it, and this moment is now approaching.

This week saw Activision announce that Call Of Duty 2026 will not available for PlayStation 4. If EA Sports FC27 also bypasses the final generation format, then that’s where you can draw a line under.Sony’s fourth home console.

When attempting to address the legacy of the PlayStation 4, the strong inclination is to frame it in terms of the shortcomings of thePlayStation 5. That’s a form of flattery, as the suggestion is that the PlayStation 4 did everything correctly and Sony was mistaken in straying from those lessons. However, it tends to overlook the situation Sony found itself in with thePlayStation 3and how later they did the one thing almost no video game company has ever done… it learned from its errors.

Although the PlayStation 3 sold more units than theXbox 360globally, it was only by a slim margin, which would not have been possible ifMicrosofthadn’t messed up the ball during the last years of the Xbox 360, fixating on Kinect and mishandling its first-party studios. In every other aspect, the PlayStation 3 was a disgraceful failure, clearly due to Sony becoming overly confident after the extraordinary success of the PlayStation 1 and 2.

The PlayStation 3 was excessively complex, costly, and lacked a range of appealing exclusive titles – especially during a time when the significance of must-have applications and first-party games was undeniable. Naturally, there were some quality games available, but the system proved challenging to develop for, with many third-party titles performing poorly, while the Xbox 360 offered a much more superior online service.

However, the PlayStation 4 resolved all these issues. Its online services quickly brought it on par with Xbox, and Sony’s improved relationships with other publishers led to it becoming the primary platform for nearly all last-generation games. Microsoft handed them the failure of the Xbox One launch, but Sony fully capitalized on their competitor’s errors.

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