I remember when the one was released. It was a shit show, and Microsoft was pretty overbearing with some of their practices. They reigned in a lot of it but people haven't forgotten that they tried to pull that crap in the first place. Gamers don't forget being screwed over or taken advantage of so quickly.
Sony swooped in and basically all they had to do was just not be Microsoft and the PS4 was a larger success because of it.
Sony also went hard on single player exclusives when the craze was multi-player and it paid off because people started to realize that these single player games were like a good movie or television series and they made a huge comeback during the PS4s reign with games like God of War, The Last of Us, and Horizon Zero Dawn. Single players are some of my favorite games to play now.