You've been talking about Amazon/Google/Apple coming in and taking over for years and nothing at all has suggested this will happen.

If buying your way into the gaming industry cemented you a spot MS would have won a generation already. It doesn't matter that new competitors are larger. Nintendo has survived much bigger companies than it and Sony is no less savvy. 

Like what do we realistically expect Amazon or Google to do? Offer Streaming services? Ok, but what content? The same multiplatform content available on all the others? I mean really to be a big contender in the Gaming World you need Exclusives. Exclusive games and or exclusive features. Amazon I could surely imagine bundling it's gaming with it's existing subscription service.....but that still wouldn't incentivize over Playstation or Xbox who have studios making games just for them.

Amazon and Google could buy up a ton of game devs but it doesn't mean what they churn out will be any good. 

You are largely overestimating what these companies can realistically do to shake up gaming.

Why not?

At the end of the day... Whoever has the most consoles out in the market... Are more likely to be able to entice more subscribers.
Other platforms like the PC, Switch and so on can assist in closing that gap... But likely if you are on Xbox... You will want Gamepass and if you are on Playstation you will want Playstation Now! And if you are on PC... You probably don't care all that much and will thus likely just gravitate towards Steam.

Another question posed by this Streaming future is......who says all the 3rd parties are going to just rally on board for them completely?

Like I don't perceive all developers will hence forth be offering their games day one for any of the available streaming services. As it stands, Sony already has more 3rd party partners on board for their service, ones who have still yet to put their games on Gamepass. Sony also has the larger stable of games that can't be gotten anywhere on their service. What will xCloud service really mean if its still the same 250 games of eye bleeding quality vs PSNow's 750+ decently running titles?

If it plays out anything like The Movie/TV industry we will only see even more large publishers try to divy off and make claim with their own services if they can. EA has been attempting that already.

These types of services will live and die by their game collection.

I also don't believe we have really seen the extent of what Sony can and will do with the service. As far as we know, they could already be getting Servers put in place. They are just keeping their head down and letting the media say what they want.

The services will live and die based on what the audience says, specifically younger audiences, not us older fart gamers most likely. 

I'm sure every movie studio preferred the old model of everyone paying $20 a pop for a physical DVD over what they have now. It's the audience that said "fuck it, I don't want to pay $20 for every movie and I don't want to go rent movies at a video store". Studios had no choice but to comply and get on the Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Video bandwagon. 

It's not even like Netflix has the best content either ... most of the stuff on their service is pure crap. It's the convenience of it which is killer, people don't want to go to a video store, they want the video store to be in their living room even if it meant the quality of content isn't as high. 

There's accouple key ingredients that will entice developers to jump on board and that's the world wide accessibility of xCloud and MS's very own 1st party line-up launching day one to help promote GamePass.

We don't know how long until Sony can achieve world wide status for there Gaikia network. Might not even be achieved next gen.

Also you are comparing a service that's been out for many years, of course its going to have a bigger library, of course its going to be more popular. Also xCloud doesn't have to be GamePass games only, it could access any Xbox game moving forward. GamePass is just a value package something that will go well together for a package deal etc. xCloud isn't limited to 1 game library. It might also house mobile games and PC games etc. We don't exactly know for sure, but you know its going to be more than 250 games that GamePass offers.

Not sure how the subscription model works with PSNow but with Gamepass you can play some brand new games at release or some months after it and if you like to you can play a game like Forza or in the future games like Gears and Ori at release for a few bucks a month.

Sure, Crackdown or Sea of Thieves didn't get great reviews but that's not the reason why they were available day one. The service model was the reason.

PSNow doesn't offer that, yet.

It may have more games but right now it's a different model. That's why people/magazines talk different about them

As had been said by others before, you're comparing apples to oranges here. Gamepass is never intended to become a streaming service; that's Xcloud's job. It's also the one Microsoft called the Netflix for games, not Gamepass. The rumored digital-only Xbox One will probably come with just that, meaning it will be an Xbox branded streaming box comparable to the Playstation TV. It's also probably xCloud, and not Gamepass, that will make it onto the Switch.

So nope, Gamepass is a game download subscription service and thus comparing it to a streaming service and considering the lack of streaming the killing feature is just plain wrong. Let's see how xCloud will work out and then we can compare it to PSNow, as that would make much more sense. Main difference between the two apart from the game library will probably be that xCloud will bring the newest Xbox games while Sony waits a couple years before bringing it's newest games to their service.

About consumers not looking at game pixel ratios, that's true... but they probably remember the shiny pictures from trailers and the like and will wonder why it looks much worse ingame.

As an anecdote,or me personally, neither xCloud or PSNow would be good for me. I tried PSNow, but streaming games just isn't for me, which would mean Gamepass would win by default since it's something different entirely.

Pretty sure the only reason MS is doing day one games on game pass is because with their current cycle of games, they make more money. If they increase their yearly output, they'd start losing money. It's currently 120 per year, so if they release 2 AAA games in one year, and the average subscriber played them both, they would probably lose money right there because if they have 3rd party games on it, they'll need to pay those publishers something. I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the day one rule for next gen.

I am not the only one even in this thread theorizing that "Project xCloud" is just a facet of Gamepass or they will be one in the same when it is all said and done.

If not part of some sort of subscription how are you imagining Cloud gaming to work?

Are you thinking Cloud version as a seperate sku to sell to consumers? Similar to how there is Physical and Digital, then maybe Cloud version.

I find that highly unlikely. 

PSNow offers Streaming and Download where applicable (mostly PS4 titles).  So the service has XCloud/Gamepass on both fronts.

I think some of you are jumping the gun thinking that MS(or Sony) by some miraculous reason is going to convince 3rd parties to jump fully on board to have their games on any Sub service. If they can't get a ton on for localized distribution via stream, how are they suppose to do cloud distribution? I just don't forsee the number of contributors being larger than what we already know to exist on current Gamepass/PSNow. It might grow over time, but that time will likely be long, in which Sony has plenty of time to build up their server strength. This is speaking as if this is really suppose to take any sizable chunk from traditional locally processed gaming. 

I keep hearing "But MS has Day 1 Games". THAT IS ONLY THEIR FIRST PARTY! Which is easily argued the weakest distributor of games out of the big three. That is not the huge selling point unless their quality and appeal step up big time or 3rd Party support Day 1 releases on the service.

About the Graphical Fidelity: I would also add that if MS taught us anything, all you have to do is have the most powerful console on the market as an option, and everyone will start toting your brand as the definitive....even if it is only on a very select model or path.  The PS4 models are superior to all XB1 models except the X....but now all the commercials say "Best on Xbox One" and gamers followed suit....even though XB1X makes up the smallest percentage of Xbox Ones out there. I will also say that gamers are at least partially aware that certain conveniences come with caveats. You know when playing Fortnite on your Smartphone you are not going to get it at the best of quality, but you don't care because you want to alleviate your bordom in class. Every console gamer knows that PC capabilities out strip what is possible on console but they aim for convenience of use, budget pricing, and game selection. Streaming is no different, you have to go into streaming understanding it will always have limitations(even xcloud) and those who stress over wireless controller latency will never be satisfied with that.....but they are not the market.

And me personally, I don't want Stream based gaming either. I have never had very consistent internet and abhor the idea of needing to be tethered constantly to play my games. My general thought is what happens when the internet goes out? All of a sudden my console becomes a paper weight.  Still....if we are talking about Streaming Gaming services of the future Sony is the one in the lead currently because they are the only one with anything fully implemented. And I am calling into question whether MS can even steal that from them regardless of superior tech.