I can answer this more thoroughly.
For some reason, Sony lost a fuck load of studios and talent during the PS4, and is only recently re-aquiring them. Insomniac was one of the biggest since they wanted independence from Sony, so they moved to Microsoft for the first half of the PS4, even did back up on some EA titles, till it was obvious that only Sony fans gave a shit about them. From there, they were rushed on the Ratchet & Clank movie title, but then would develop Spider-Man and get bought out by Sony a year later.
Sucker Punch would mysteriously vanish after the PS4’s launch with Infamous. They had a whole chunk of time where they were just not producing anything, so they likely fell into financial trouble like Insomniac and worked as side developers for bigger publishers.
David Jaffe went crazy after Twisted Metal 2012 and failed to start his own studio. Now a Sony legend is pretty much exiled from the company so that he may forever smoke weed and play video games in his room rather than develop Twisted Metal or God of War. Also, I think all but one of Jaffe’s studios are shut down at this point, that being Santa Monica.
Naughty Dog went through a restructuring and throwing out of the old guard by new wokesters. If I am remembering correctly, and please state if I am wrong, Neil Druckmen basically conformed to the religion of Anita Sarkesian and fought old Naughty Dog staff over politics. A primary one was actually a female developer that helped design Jak & Daxter and Uncharted, causing her to leave. Naughty Dog seems to be one of those modern tales where the old people that built the company are ripped out in a corporate power struggle.
Sony recently destroyed their Japanese studios, so the teams that brought us Ape Escape, Astro, and Gravity Rush are no more.
Media Molecule developed Dreams for half a decade and we haven’t heard word from them since. Hell, for as impressive as it is, Sony barely allowed Dreams to gain exposure. The game goes for like $10 now, so I have no idea how much of a real success it was. It sold a million at least, but for a long-term project like it is supposed to be, it doesn’t have much of a mainstream following in the same way LBP did.
After that, there were tons of smaller studios that Sony worked that just never went anywhere. Sanzaru is a prime example as Sly 4 was cucked by Sony not wanting to continue any partnership. Sumo Digital also sort of fell off their radar until Sackboy, even though they did a decent job with LBP3 for the conditions they were put through.
From about 2012 to 2019, Insomniac wanted to diversify themselves, and own the rights to their own IP. They even developed a game published by Gamestop, and a game for the Oculus Rift. That all went out the window with Spider-Man; it seems that game's success finally convinced Sony to make their relationship official and just acquire them. During that time, their only major PS4 only release besides
Spider-Man was
Ratchet & Clank (2016). For a wile Playstation just wasn't their focus, though some of their multiplats did get PS4 ports.
We all know what happened with Naughty Dog.
Polyphony Digital made only one game for the PS4 alone, and that was the much maligned GT Sport, the previous game being 2013's GT6 for the PS3. That's a long time between numbered Gran Turismo games, considering GT7 only came out this year. This also means that the PS4 has no numbered Gran Turismo to itself, considering that GT7 is a cross-platform title.
Sucker Punch really did drop off the map. There is a
six year gap between 2020's
Ghost of Tsushima, and 2014's
Infamous First Light. This may have something to do with the layoffs that hit the studio literally the same month
First Light was released.
Santa Monica Studio released nothing between 2013's
God of War: Ascension and 2018's
God of War.
Bend Studio, the original creators of
Syphon Filter, released nothing between the 2012 Vita game
Uncharted: Fight for Fortune, and 2019's
Days Gone.
Guerilla Games had a shorter time period between releases;
Killzone Shadow Fall released in 2013, while
Horizon Zero Dawn released in 2017.
London studio were more consistent between 2012 and 2019, releasing six games in that span, but haven't released a game since 2019.
Media Molecule has done nothing since they released
Dreams in 2020. Prior to that, their last game was five years before, 2015's
Tearaway Unfolded.
Pixelopus was established in 2014 and released their first game that year. They wouldn't release another game until 2019. They've been working on an unnamed game since, but we know nothing about it.
Team Asobi, the remains of Japan Studio have basically done nothing but work on
The Playroom and
Astro's Playroom. They did consistently release four games between 2013 and 2020.
The only Sony studio that consistently produced games between the period of 2012 and 2019 was San Diego Studio, who managed to release a new
MLB: The Show every single year, and continued to do so up till this year.
No matter how you shake it, there was a for sure drop off in PlayStation Studios output between 2012 and 2019.
Yeah, Sony doesn't have any kind of history of shutting down studios and their games when they can profit elsewhere.
Sony have shut down at least eight studios: Bigbig Studios, Evolution Studios, Guerrilla Cambridge, Incognito Entertainment, Japan Studio, Manchester Studio, Studio Liverpool, and Zipper Interactive. Three of those studios were shut down in the same year, 2012, and this is just a list of the studios they owned. This is not even getting into the studios that worked with them that Sony cut off and left to wither on a vine after their games didn't perform up to expectations, like Ready at Dawn, which Sony basically abandoned after
The Order: 1886 didn't live up to expectations, or SuperBot Entertainment, which was founded by Sony for the explicit purpose of creating
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, only to get unceremoniously killed off when that game didn't do so hot.
Sony have a long history of killing off their studios and partners, and that killstreak started in the PS3 era and continued well into the PS4 one. That era was the time when Sony were screwing their allies and associates left and right, yet another reason why both of those consoles were mark of Playstation's decline. Its not a coincidence that that period between 2012 and 2019 was also the point where their first party productivity dropped off a cliff. Its Nintendo who don't have a history of shutting down their first party studios.
