It's a good thing for Sony, although their track record is unmatched, to see that even considering rushing a game would result something like CP2077, even if I can't see a worse launch. If they were planning to rush Horizon II: Forbidden West, GOW Ragnarok, GT7 then they should take notes of how CP2077 has destroyed the reputation of one of the most beloved studios in the gaming industry with a massive hit to their stocks as well.
Not at the level of CP2077, but previous CD Project releases were also a bugfest specially in consoles, where the Witcher 3 also had important performance issues. Over time, they addressed these issues.
With a few exceptions like Driveclub, Sony instead releases their games in a very polished state, they don't rush releases. Horizon 2, GoW and GT7 will be released when ready, they can delay them if needed because have record numbers at selling consoles, games, services and have a 2021 lineup full of important exclusive. No need to rush.
If they said they are ready for 2021 even knowing the pandemic related issues and so on, it's because they think that can be released properly.
Xbox will have Halo Infinite as their only big seller exclusive for 2021, and if they continue with their 'first 2 years without next gen only exclusives', we shouldn't expect to start seeing their next gen only exclusives (next Forza/Gears, Everwild, Hellblade 2, Avowed, Fable, Perfect Dark, State of Decay 3, any other Zenimax game like Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout 5, the next Doom/Dishonored/Wolfenstein...) until at least the end of 2022 or later.
This means Sony has an opportunity of releasing a ton of exclusives (if possible next gen only) before these games arrive in order to secure a huge market share with the biggest install base possible, in order to minimize their impact on the competition for this generation. So they don't need to rush, but they better to take advantage of that opportunity during 2021 and 2022.
How long can sony keep up the goty streak ?? So far 3 years in a row their games have won the most awards.
I feel this year will end the streak since there's no way god of war releases this year.
God of War Raknarok and Horizon 2 are 2021 games, and I bet they will be the main GOTY contenders, competing with (if they are released in 2021, they still don't have an announced release year) BotW2 and Elder Ring.
If Horizon 2 or GoWR get delayed to 2022, will be main GOTY contenter of that year, next to other Sony games they may have in the works for that year (Spider Man 2, Days Gone 2, Bloodborne 2, etc).