No Man's Sky documented troubles showed that Sony as a publisher will help ease major problems that arise to an extent(i.e. the last minute sticker put on the package that blocked off any mention of multiplayer). But after the game is released it lives and dies by it's own merits. If the leak did not happen the rumored course of actionwas that the project was going to be handed off to another studio to fix who had experience in the same genre(possibly Santa monica or Guerrilla) and issued refunds shortly after, but the leak happened so quickly and so sudden that they abandoned those plans. if the leak did not happen the game would have been shelved and reworked for another year and a half.
People may compare it to Death Stranding but Kojima allowed Sony product placement to reduce production costs and be given more leeway and the game did wind up turning a profit and selling well. Kojima also regularly showed new builds.
When the refunds were issued that was a big sign that they knew it was shit.