Well I don't follow it as closely as you do probably, so some of that is just my impression. But the handles on their controllers, as well as the dual-analog sticks, were unique to consoles when they came out.
I never knew anything about Nintendo announcing DVD media before Sony did, and then deciding not to, but if it's true then it definitely rules out one of Sony's major contributions to consoles tech-wise.
But even as late as the Nintendo 64, they were still using big plastic cartridges for game media, so I would hardly call their consoles 'streamlined.'
You know, now that I mention that, I have to wonder something... The media on the old-school cartridges were solid-state memory, weren't they? With today's technology, wouldn't it be faster to use solid-state memory cartridges than optical media? Or would that be prohibitively expensive?