I'm not arguing about this "particular" stance in regards to the Playstation 5. It's the same stance regardless of console.
I am a PC gamer first and foremost, I have no brand loyalty to the consoles.

So by your logic... If 7 years into the consoles cycle and there is no mention of variable rate shading, can we still assume the console has it "hidden away"?
Where do we draw the line on where we can discount a certain feature being present in the hardware?
The Playstation 3 was never mentioned to have a Tessellation unit, but the Xbox 360 did have that technology, do we still assume that the Playstation 3 might have the technology because Sony never discussed it? No. No we do not.

I get that not every feature will be mentioned, but you generally assume large and important features will be mentioned and variable rate shading is one such feature that is gaining prominence on the PC due to the efficiency gains it brings forth.

Digital Foundry even goes on the record to assert that there is little/no evidence of variable rate shading.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-ps5-reveal-does-it-deliver-the-next-gen-dream

The Playstation 5's Graphics API's do actually support the feature as well. (I.E. Vulkan and OpenGL.)
RDNA1 doesn't support the feature, RDNA2 does support the feature. - You need both software and hardware support to leverage the hardware feature.

The feature can be done entirely in software if a developer wished to go down that path outside of hardware/API. (Unlikely.)

That is my position... And that is to assume the feature isn't present because there is no evidence of it, there has been no discussion by Sony about it.
And I am happy to change my view when new evidence/statement from Sony comes forward regarding it.

I hold the same position in regards to the existence of God, that because there is no evidence of God, I will discard the idea that God exists until such a time it can be proven empirically. It's logical.

First, i come in peace...

Second...
Have you ever played Astro Bot VR? Amazing game, uses VR in such amazing way, and yeah i feel like at some point Nintendo will invest in Virtual Reality to create a new Mario experience. Also, yeah, many will claim Nintendo is the one that created the concept of a 3D platformer combined with Virtual Reality, will claim things like "Only Nintendo can be this creative" or "nintendo did this first"...

Also, Never said Mario isn't the most iconic platformer, or one of the originators of modern  platforme. I'm just saying the Astro Bot VR created something amazing and new... and that Nintendo will copy it at some point.

Note: you most likely think i'm talking about "Astro's Playroom for Ps5", it's a understandable mistake. I take no offences on your rather aggressive comments. Be at peace.

I would never guess the internet would be in such an uproar about a DF comparison for a mediocre cross-generation racing game. There will be 7 years of comparisons and better games as well. Not just talking about this topic. Just in general. Dirt 5 is not deserving of this much attention.

i will have to agree with your edit., it's fair... VR doesn't matter right now.
For now VR is almost irrelevant, however I believe that  the technology has a future. When that future arrives, I believe that Nintendo will copy the concept created by Astro bot VR.
Also, I am happy to clarify any misunderstandings. And yes, "Astro's Playroom", despite being a good game (short, but still very good), does not compare with Mario, saying something different, in fact, is insane.

Sony have been very silent with PS5. Besides SSD and Tempest Chip they have been very brief on everything else during the reveal. So we can't really be sure of what is there or not, sure since if they haven't specifically talked about it then it's fair to assume it isn't in the PS5. Although I think oodle textures was mentioned as is equivalent to VRS right?

I'm not arguing about this "particular" stance in regards to the Playstation 5. It's the same stance regardless of console.
I am a PC gamer first and foremost, I have no brand loyalty to the consoles.

So by your logic... If 7 years into the consoles cycle and there is no mention of variable rate shading, can we still assume the console has it "hidden away"?
Where do we draw the line on where we can discount a certain feature being present in the hardware?
The Playstation 3 was never mentioned to have a Tessellation unit, but the Xbox 360 did have that technology, do we still assume that the Playstation 3 might have the technology because Sony never discussed it? No. No we do not.

I get that not every feature will be mentioned, but you generally assume large and important features will be mentioned and variable rate shading is one such feature that is gaining prominence on the PC due to the efficiency gains it brings forth.

Digital Foundry even goes on the record to assert that there is little/no evidence of variable rate shading.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-ps5-reveal-does-it-deliver-the-next-gen-dream

The Playstation 5's Graphics API's do actually support the feature as well. (I.E. Vulkan and OpenGL.)
RDNA1 doesn't support the feature, RDNA2 does support the feature. - You need both software and hardware support to leverage the hardware feature.

The feature can be done entirely in software if a developer wished to go down that path outside of hardware/API. (Unlikely.)

That is my position... And that is to assume the feature isn't present because there is no evidence of it, there has been no discussion by Sony about it.
And I am happy to change my view when new evidence/statement from Sony comes forward regarding it.

I hold the same position in regards to the existence of God, that because there is no evidence of God, I will discard the idea that God exists until such a time it can be proven empirically. It's logical.

A activison dev, has come out and said the PS5 has VRS.

Here is a software engineer, that worked on the PS5:

Variable Rate Shading is nice for saving cycles, but VRS’ optimization capability doesn’t hold a handle to the Geometry Engine’s capabilities. VRS without GE means you’re still processing vertices you can/should eliminate in earlier stages to begin with. More free compute/memory.

— Matt Hargett (@syke) March 19, 2020

PS5 can use VRS, and can eliminate processing vertices, in earlier stages to free up compute/memory.
The geometry engine, in the PS5 does have the capabilities to do this.

Its just MS used it as a marketing term, and said "we support VRS", while sony hasn't spoken about it, and only a few devs have.
Have we seen VRS used in any games yet? No idea.
When will it start mattering? No idea.

Thats something even digital foundry said in a previous video, not sure wich. But its baked into the geometry engine of the PS5 so they probably have so slight differences and they dont call it VRS. MS runing with their PR is the whole reason we are in this current online hysteria about PS5 matching and sometimes outperforming the xbox. So not taking PR into consideration would be the wisest approach. 

So it would be like one putting 5 features and the other 20 but the 20 are actually the same 5 but diced apart to fill a box?