Lol, I get you here.  I read it exactly the way the OP meant it, as well.  I can see someone getting confused, I guess, but it's easy to understand what he meant and it is worded correctly.

That really describes much of what MS has do lately.  Not because they wanted to, but because they had to to compete with Sony.  They had to drop the DRM takeover.  Not when the internet rose against it, but when the preorders were dreadful.  They had to start giving away games with Gold.  They had to take down the paywall for free apps, though, they still have a paywall for F2P online games.  They had to end their parity clause for indies.  They had to have constant firesales to even get close to 50M.  Now, they are having to cozy up to Nintendo, with cross-play and Gamerpass (and really this service in itself is an answer to Sony), using Nintendo's success as a stepping stone to a possible console-less future.  If the XBO had only been behind by ~75% of what the PS4 had sold, MS would most likely have done none of these things.  They may have done Gamerpass, but they definitely wouldn't be giving away big games on 1st day before we switched to an all streaming future.

On a side note, I don't think Nintendo is being very smart with their cozying up to MS.  MS, like I said, is using Nintendo to bolster their own gaming future.  What is Nintendo doing?  What are they going to do if we switch to an all, or even mostly, streaming future?  Put their releases on xCloud and be subservient to MS?  We do have a little ways to go before this happens, but now should be the time that Nintendo is building toward the future.

What a bizarre thing to gloat about, Sony locking cloud saves behind a paywall. That would be like someone pointing out XBL Gold was required for online play long before PS+ was required. 

Plus, you don’t need Gold to use the cloud saves on Xbone. You play a game on one console, log in on another and it automatically syncs whether you have Gold or not. On PS4 you not only need PS+ but you have to manually transfer saves to the cloud and manually retrieve them, unless they’ve changed how it works recently? That’s how it was last year when I transferred my Horizon save from my PS4 to my Pro.

Your wording implies Microsoft is forcing GamePass on gamers. How so? It’s just an optional service like PS Now. Microsoft also allows EA Access, which Sony does not. Microsoft isn’t afraid of competing services on their platform, if either company is “forcing” you to do anything it would be Sony, denying gamers any option outside of PS Now.

As it stands, Microsoft has one big roadblock to overcome with Game Pass, which is the quantity of enticing content they have been able to offer. I look at Game Pass and "pass" really is the first word that I think of. They're going to have trouble tempting non-Xbox gamers to the service unless they drastically increase the quality and quantity of their first party offerings or they're able to increase the scope of their third party content. Will the studios they've been buying up be able to bridge that gap? Eh, maybe, but not in their present states. Those studios will have to improve themselves a lot before they become significant factors.

Sony has that on tap, whenever they're ready to pull the trigger. That's the question, though--how long will they wait on that? It's going to be a tricky decision. Still, even if they do wait an extended period, something with the quality of "God Of War" or "The Last Of Us" will get people's attention. No matter what certain people in this thread are hoping, when Sony pulls the trigger on making their first party content available to stream Day One, they will instantly be relevant.

In price and in service. Was that really that hard to understand that I meant that and nothing else?

At least PS+ actually gave you many more features than just simply being able to play online.  I guess its a good thing Sony forced MS's hand on that one. Though, the point was that Sony was looking at this feature first, MS followed.  Sure, it is nice that they don't require Gold for a smaller amount of Cloud saves.

I don't know if they changed retrieving Cloud saves, as it's been awhile since I have needed to retrieve one.  However, I do know that they do automatically save to the Cloud.  When beginning a new game, it asks you if you wish to have them save automatically or not.

MS wanted to move to all digital much faster than the market wanted to or was ready to, hence the DRM BS from the beginning of the gen.  And Sony didn't want a competing service because it leads to what is happening in the tv/movie streaming market.  Instead of having a couple of streaming sites/apps, now we have every freaking premium channel and movie studio taking away their content and trying to come out with their own streaming sites/apps, all priced at $10-$15 a month. 

If Sony allowed it, it wouldn't have stopped at EA Access.  We'd have Ubisoft Access.  Activision Access.  Bethesda Access.  Rockstar Access.  THQNordic Access.  And so on and so on.  And I'm sure your answer will be let the market decide.  Well, they already did.  They chose Sony and the PS4.  Obviously, having the online market so divided and be so expensive was not appealing to them, or they would have jumped on the Xbox train.

PS+ started as a service focused solely on premium features. They NEEDED more features than XBL in order to make the service appealing. This gen with PS+ being required for online play, you’ve seen a steep drop in quality of PS+ titles. 

I’m not sure what hand you’re stating Sony forced. I’m glad Sony threw in games to PS+ because now all three platforms offer it. But those types of services existed on PC long before. Free media apps not requiring XBLG? Why only give Sony credit for this? Nintendo won the last gen and they had media and social apps requiring no subscription. You can point to a lot of stuff and say Company A did this and now Company B did this. I guarantee after the ease of complete BC Xbox has this gen, Sony will follow suit next gen. Again, not something started by Microsoft, but Sony dropped it two gens in a row now. Do you like having the option to download PS Now games? I guess you can thank GamePass for that. Etc etc.

What “smaller amount of cloud saves” are you referring to? Are Xbone save sizes generally smaller than PS4? That would certainly explain why Sony has to increase their size limit. Are you implying Xbone owners have less storage space? That’s not correct. Microsoft does it the smart way, you’re given storage space on a per game basis, so the bigger library you have, the larger storage space. And they can tweak the limit on a per game basis based on how big the games save files are. I remember reading that LBP3 and Driveclub saves combined, just those two games alone, added up to 800MB. Imagine being limited to 1GB in space total, and just two games took up 70-80% of that. In the XBL system you’d have a limit for each game.

Youre right about the whole Ubi Access stuff. I mean, I love using Ubisoft Access for free games and the Rockstar Access is pretty good too. Activision Access even gives you exclusive stuff in Destiny. Of course, I’m kidding with all of this, that whole “every publisher will start their own service!” doomsday bullshit was never anything more than weak excuse making to cover Sony’s butt. EA says Access is a success, and they added it to PC as well. And yet we haven’t seen anything from other publishers. File that prediction under the same file as your numerous “Microsoft is leaving the industry” hot takes.

You can cling to sales numbers if you want, they’re not at all relevant to anything we’ve discussed here. Imagine trying to scoreboard because your argument can’t stand on its own, lol.

Gamepass wins because it is available everywhere while PS Now is available in 17 countries or so

That's a crock of **** right there.  There have been off months, but to use the term "steep decline" to describe the trajectory of the PS+ offerings this gen is nonsense. Are you even aware of what games were part of the service in 2018?

 http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2018/12/guide_all_free_ps_plus_games_in_2018

The hate is strong in this thread.

Shockingly enough one company is being smashed for already ding what other companies are promising to eventually do.

And said limitations lauded on the one company are all policy software things. Basically things that will be easy to support if the need is ever there..

I dont get why there is hate for either service, PS Now and Game Pass both offer great value and by the looks of it they are both going to continue improving