Ok took a bit but I listened to the whole podcast. There are some very interesting claims being made here. Here are a few of my takeaways
In regards to raytracing
Yes Sony has it, but Cerny didn't mention it. The devs on the podcast seem to think this could signal that the tech is there but possibly inferior to XSX. Personally I don't really buy that because we don't know much about XSX RTX capability either other than it's "Hardware Accelerated". So I'm 50/50 on that. I guess overall, because of the compute power difference, one would assume Sony's is not as capable.
About SSD and what it means in reference to performance:
According to the devs, the bottomline is that a faster SSD will not amount to better graphics. Two different things controlled by 2 different pieces of the hardware. What it comes down to is synergy and how well the system performs as a whole. In that they seem to suggest the XSX is the better engineered system due to things like constant TFLOP count and some other things I'm not quite savvy enough to understand fully.
When it comes down to First party vs Third party development, including PC
They said PS5's SSD would be taken full advantage of by first party studios, but 3rd party studios wouldn't use the SSD at it's full advantage. I would assume if the 3rd party does an exclusive game for PS5, that game would be able to take full advantage, however games that are multiplat or going to PC would not be able to take full advantage because of developing for the most common denominator.
Speaking of PC
If it comes down to anything holding back next gen games, it would be PC. I know this is gonna ruffle some features, but what the devs said actually made sense. It's due to the minimum spec. Next gen, you'll still have people who run a 1060. Ultimately it's up to the devs, but they aren't likely to cut off a large chunk of their player base if most people have lower end GPUs. I was unclear on how this affects the next gen consoles exactly. For exclusives that will be put on PC, either the minimum spec would need to raised to meet at least Lockhart levels (rumored) or those games may suffer as well. Especially if devs want to develop games that will work on SATA hard drives. This makes me weary of dumping more money to upgrade my PC at this time. At least this kind of defeats the narrative that "I'll just play it on PC"...I mean you can, but in all likelihood, you may be playing an inferior version come the beginning of the gen. This goes double if PS5 releases their exclusives on PC as well.
Overall, it was a really good show. Definitely enjoyed it and look forward to the next one honestly. Last week I think they had Alanah Pierce...which, love her or not...she's pretty funny.