MS is paying the developers a pretty big sum upfront. Not sure how that works with PsNow but Sony probably can't or is isn't interested in matching that. 

Which I very much expect but with the service being offered for a little as £1 for the first month, I wonder how MS are even making money from it.

But alas, that's for MS to lose from and gamers to benefit from. :)

MS is paying the developers a pretty big sum upfront. Not sure how that works with PsNow but Sony probably can't or is isn't interested in matching that. 

Because I think it's way more important that the masses are "forced" to migrate so the next gen consoles can build a good install base, and we get the best support possible from developers. If the ps5 has build a 100m install base, and they then decide to release all of their exclusives on psnow, that would be great. But it would suck if they would all become cross-gen early on, just because the install base isn't there yet and developers would have to make sure all their games run on ps4 and the average pc too.

You have to understand that this is the fist time in history, next gen consoles launch that are far more powerful than the average gaming pc. By making all their 1st party games available on pc, developers will constantly have to think "Will this run on normal HDD and a GTX1060 too?" Let alone the ancient jaguar cpu of the ps4/Xone. We simply have no idea how that;ll influence their vision and scope of these next gen games, but I'm sure it would have been better if developers could just focus on a single platform instead and take full advantage of it. With Psnow that is a bit different as on pc you can only stream the games and the 1st party ps5 games won't be cross-gen.

Not even a bit.

I'm into physical games, not digital and much less streaming.

It would be irrelevant to me.

My theory is that MS will be exiting the console market after the next gen and, instead will focus on becoming the world's biggest cloud gaming platform provider. https://www.equities.com/news/microsoft-has-quietly-made-the-switch-of-the-century Just like with Amazon, this is where MS will be making the big $$$$. Unfortunately, that's also why they are not too fussed about winning the console war next gen because they're already looking past that.

As a content provider I just don't see MS doing that great against Nintendo or Sony, who will have a much stronger brand and will likely corner the market if gaming subscriptions does become the future. Off course, MS will make a ton of $$$$ if they can provide the Cloud platform for them. But even there they would have to compete with Google and Amazon and there's no guarantee the major content players like Nintendo and Sony would stick with Azure. I mean, didn't MS provide Netflix with their servers until they switched to Amazon? This is probably why MS is looking at Google and Amazon as their main competitors going forward.

I know they can't just build their own cloud server network overnight, but they won't need to as they're already using Azure for PsNow. If this whole Cloud thing does become the future, wouldn't it just like we're seeing now with Netflix? As a subscription service, they're far bigger than Amazon Prime and have a much better brand awareness, but Netflix uses Amazon's Cloud servers for their back-end.

Ok let’s put it this way. You need a PS5 to play PS5 games on PSNow. No cross gen or lack of need to upgrade consoles since ps4 PSNow can’t play these games. Now also consider that PS5 exclusives are in no way impacted by subscriptions. 

It’s literally just an incentive to subscribe to their service. Same games, and you need a PS5 to play them. You still wouldn’t like the idea of playing day 1 exclusives for a low price? 

Microsoft won't exit the console market if it's still a profitable venture.
Not to mention the "brand" has pull in the PC and other markets outside of console as well.

Microsoft is doing fine, they are leveraging the PC to give their content a larger market base... PC+XBox is certainly a larger audience than Playstation OR Switch.

What makes Azure a more ideal platform than what Google or Amazon offers is... Gaming related technologies and optimizations.

That might change, that might not.

And it's interesting you use Netflix as an example... Netflix still buys a ton of Microsoft technologies like PlayReady DRM.. But on the server side of things they have been with Amazon Web Services for a long time, before that they ran with their own servers... And there is talk they are doing some stuff on Google's services.
One company like Netflix can use multiple cloud providers at the same time.

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/longtime-amazon-web-services-customer-netflix-said-cozying-google/

It took 7 years for Netflix to migrate to Amazons Cloud Servers, that's almost an entire console generation... I would imagine the logistics behind it all would have been pretty impressive on top of it.
https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/completing-the-netflix-cloud-migration

So once a big platform is locked to a cloud provider... It's not just a simple "shift" to another provider, there are also significant costs in shifting as well... And this is what makes cloud computing like Azure so lucrative, you lock customers in for the long term.

Of course I would. If Sony's willing to give me all their AAA exclusives on day one for free, that would be great! But like I said, in the beginning I would much rather see Sony focus on growing the ps5 installbase so we get the best support from developers. The first couple of years are pretty important as that will determine if developers decide to develop games specifically for a next gen console or not. If the install base isn't growing as expected, they will likely not risk it and make their games cross-gen instead, while likely targeting current gen as the base platform.

That's my only problem with GP. Giving away games for free is fantastic but not if it comes at the expense of building a next gen install base. With MS making all their 1st party games available on a ton of different devices, they're giving consumers a lot less incentive to migrate to Series X, even less so if they are planning to sell it for $599 or more. If series X sales tank because of it, it will basically be all on Sony to build a next gen install base early on. Which means it will probably take much longer before the major 3rd party developers completely switch focus to true next gen titles.