I wouldn't consider the PS4 mediocre. It was leaps and bounds more accessible and consumer friendly compared to the PS3. You can argue the eighth generation was underpowered compared to their PC counterparts, but do not underestimate Sony's advantage from the Xbox One.
I am just judging by its library. If you look at the number and quality of exclusives for PS4 it's worse than PS3, especially if you don't count the reboots, remasters, and remakes. In terms of wholly original games that are any good, it's pretty low.
A decent chuck of their AAA exclusives were woke trash like TLoU2 and Uncharted 4. Abby and Nadine are two of the absolute worst characters but the game sold and reviewed well regardless, I know, but they're still trash. Others were just regular non-woke trash/mediocrity like Knack 1 & 2, and The Order: 1886.
For every Bloodborne there was a Days Gone or two. And before the system even kicks the bucket a number of their games are heading to or are already on PC.
Many of PS3's good games remained exclusive, and there were more of them. They didn't lean
as heavily on remasters, reboots, and remakes in that generation yet either.
I think that makes PS4 at least comparatively mediocre, previous Sony consoles were better. If you look at the entire history of consoles then PS4 is still probably near the top, I'm not going to pretend it's Jaguar or CD-i levels of bad. Still, PS4 is no PS3.
In terms of being more accessible and consumer friendly, I guess so. It has its advantages, I'm sure. It has disadvantages too though, like requiring PS+ to play online. I also personally prefer PS3's controller. Backwards compatibility was also nice.
I think PS4 was in some ways a breath of fresh air when compared to the PS3, but it still paled in comparison to the PS2.
PS3 certainly wins when it comes to games with "The Last of Us" in the title though.
Was is really though? I was underwhelmed especially at launch. Even little things like the UI were inferior, PS3 & PSP had a very good user interface.
Part of this isn't Sony's fault but a lot of games, especially in established series, put out trash sequels on PS4 like FFXV and SFV. I know people liked Resident Evil VII & VIII but they're just spinoffs as far as I'm concerned, they don't resemble the series I'm used to at all.
So, to a degree, it's a matter of personal taste, I admit. There just wasn't much for me to be excited for.
PS1 was a juggernaut, PS2 was an even bigger juggernaut, I dare say almost every single person who played video games via touching a controller owned a PS2, it was an incredibly ubiquitous part of life in the 2000s.
Yeah, everybody had PS2, it was crazy. Those were the days.