What part of $250 Million sounds "free" to you?

It's hard to say , the couple of years of cooperation in developing PS5 SSD /IO  followed by the reception of the demo may have shown that looking at the future with new players entering the landscape and the moves already underway by the industry both parties saw a need for strategic alliances and the aforementioned cooperation may have shown synergys and pathways that have a wider focus than just unreal/ fortnite so the investment is putting the full stop on that.

Looks as though I may have spoke too soon. lol. This really makes it look as though there's a lot more to the relationship than simply liking SNY's hardware decisions for PS5. I guess it could be that Epic and SNY have finally gotten to know each other well enough that it's time for the next big step, but I dunno. If this step is $250M, I wonder how much the ring is going to cost?

I remember those years ago when people used to say: "Sony is going bankrupt any minute now! Sony can't sell a building every year for their earnings report!"

Now it's: "Sony needs to back off getting their hands everywhere!"

How things change.

My first uninformed impression about this news was: Sony may release PC content through Epic Store, but I don't know, maybe that's a stretch... but then Horizon Zero Dawn releases on PC and maybe Sony is planning to release PS exclusives on PC months after their PS5 release.

There's really no way that M$ wasn't in talks with Epic early during the development of the Xbox Series X. Literally everyone, including Nintendo, goes to Epic before releasing a new piece of hardware, because they're the owners of the biggest engine in gaming. Hell, it was Epic who convinced Microsoft to put 512mb of ram in the xbox 360 way back in the day. 

I don't think Sony needs Epic to hype the ps5, and I don't think $250m will buy them any meaningful exclusive content. To me this sounds like Sony was simply happy with how the collaboration with Epic helped shape the design of the ps5.

The SSD centric features of UE5 will benefit all platforms, but I got a feeling the ps5 will perform much better.

Pretty much changes nothing, except if Epic is really profitable Sony could make some money.

Since UE5 is likely going to be the technology most 3rd party end up using and since most 3rd party studios are going to publish on PS5, the two businesses have a positive feedback on each other.
Sony is going to have a little more voice in making sure the engine gets optimized for their platform, although it changes little since optimizing for PS5 was already naturally convenient for business.
So, I don't see anything earthshattering in this.

Exactly and you are dismissing the connection for a third party engine prominent being the center of attention when a deal like this is in the works.  I mean come on.  250 million to purchase some exclusive PR is  a bargain especially after the demo, interviews, twitter and other accounts praising the PS5 but throwing the PC and Xbox to the back of the room.  It also makes sense concerning that whole china demo thing when it was marginalize.  Its business and well played by Sony, I give them props for sneaking in such a deal under MS but lets not kid ourselves and believe that Sony toss that money to Epic without any incentive to get something out of it.

Lets look at a few things.  If the China demo was correct and the PC could run that demo just as fast if not faster, with the XSX SSD, it would also run that demo just as well if not better.  If Epic showed that demo on the XSX then MS would be getting a crap load of buzz.  This does not mean that Sony SSD is lacking or marginalize it just means that demo did not need that speed.  So Sony snatches up that PR, which excited a lot of people on this site.  How many views did that demo get especially since it showed a next level of graphical fidelity.

At the end of the day, that was a nice little PR money deal which probably would mean Sony get better PR from Epic which they lose out nothing since their engine will still be used on the PC and XSX but Sony can get first dids on the glory.  Smart move on MS and definitely a one up from Sony.

Absolutely no one is doubting Sony collaborated with Epic on the UE5 reveal, I'm not sure what the hysteria is with that topic. Are people really that Upset that it wasn't Xbox Series X running it? Where was the Xbox One Demo for UE4? 

Sony certainly haven't paid 250m for a bunch of promo spots for those of you trying to reduce the news to that.