So we can conclude that Insomniac nor Sony were lying about R&C needing PS5 SSD (as that was in contrast to PS4) right?

Most likely. It seemed kind of random what releases Sony IPs would release on PC initially. In 2021 when R&C originally released, it was just Horizon: Zero Dawn and Days Gone on PC, and Nixxes had barely been acquired. Initially fixing the Horizon port as well as being fully focused on both Spider-Man games. 

So it's hard to say if R&C was even being considered for PC at that time. For every brand new game now, I wouldn't doubt they're being made with the intent of being ported to PC 2 years down the road regardless of the title. That's just how it's being planned. 

Sony is still doing some catch up. You still have the likes of TLOU Part 2, Demon's Souls, Ghost of Tsushima as well as last years titles before we most likely start seeing dry spells on PC ports.

Okay. Thanks. I said elsewhere that I'm distracted/busy this week so I'm even neglecting Empire a little and not following the news much, so I have even less desire to monitor a topic I have almost no interest or knowledge in, like those tweets, I didn't know about them, Lol. Anyway I'm out of this thread again! Sorry for barging in, I know how it can feel when a Mod who has little interest in the topic of the thread interjects themselves into a community focused thread (from a very long time ago, Lol). 💀😂

Edit - Told Bandorr to transfer the OP.

Looks like for launch day, R&C: Rift Apart topped off near 9,000 concurrent players on Steam. The number is most likely lower on Epic Games Store. Not great but not bad. Hopefully the number will increase by the time the weekend is here.

I doubt Sony is expecting these games to sell gangbusters like the console versions are meant to do. This is more residual income if anything would be my guess.

I mean...

"Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a game that utilizes dimensions and dimensional rifts, and that would not have been possible without the Solid State Drive of the PlayStation 5."

Even if we're to grant Smith's mindset, the SSD-only marketing has literally been debunked.  I think you're being way too lenient here.

The way to run the game as intended without the SSD of PS5 (which is yes in comparison to PS4) is to over compensate on PC with a lot more RAM and CPU/GPU and still perform worse than the PS5 version, so nope I don't think Insomniac was lying.

Alright.  Once again, if you use words like X thing (game, feature, etc.) "...would not have been possible without the Solid State Drive of the PlayStation 5..." during your game's hype train and that's shown to be proven incorrect later on, don't act surprised when anyone slings mud at their face.  We're talking about a game already Steam Deck approved at launch (capable of running on SD cards).  No amount of convenient post hoc qualifiers can erase what now comes off as fanboying from a developer.

I did some more digging and it seemed like Rift Apart's Game Director, Mike Daly, tacitly agreed and made a more measured observation: "You could make a game like [the new] 'Ratchet & Clank' on the PS4, but just visually speaking, you would have to dial back a ton in order to get it to run."  Unsurprisingly, that grounded response came out after the game's release.  It's unfortunate that Insomniac's own clarification hasn't been circulated as widely as the "not possible without PS5 SSD" line.  

Whether you want to say it is/isn't a "lie," the moral of the story should be this if you're a developer: show excitement for your next game without leaning into console-wars hyperbole.  That's Jim Ryan's job.