I'm well aware that there is a pandemic but don't you think it is the least bit possible that they made the financial decision to put the game on ps4 because of the large number of owners and used the pandemic as an excuse to push back the game so they could officially do so. These games were suppose to be released this year so debugging and optimization should have been predominantly done last year. You get the ps5 selling out and you get to sell games on the ps4 a win , win. I'm not faulting them for putting the game on ps4. It makes a lot of sense. They should have have been clear and announced that these games were coming to both platforms at the start. We would have a lot less drama if they had done so.
Obviously they're releasing it on PS4 for the money. Most businesses have lost money in this pandemic, and Sony was obviously impacted as well. They're doing this to offset the losses.
This is why they have been very particular about what titles are exclusive to PS5, i.e. the smaller franchises and emerging IPs like Demon's Soul / Returnal / Ratchet / Destruction Allstars, and what titles are cross-gen, i.e. big established cash cow franchises like Ragnarok / GT7 / HFW.
Sony had high sales projections for PS5 in FY2021 that they aren't going to meet due to the semiconductor shortage. They need the money.
And about the drama, these are non-issues at the end of the day. These games will still be good and people will still buy them. People acting like if the knew these titles were cross gen, they would've reconsidered their purchase are just capping.