This is great news; I feel like Sega still has a pretty messy development pipeline in areas and these plans are probably part of longer-term restructuring they were already doing earlier. In a way it's kind of like Sega and Microsoft coming full-circle again in terms of Microsoft providing technologies for Sega (they did this long ago with the Dreamcast).
I hope this extends to Microsoft co-funding some new Sega AAA titles like back in the OG Xbox days; if it's the only way we can get a new Panzer Dragoon, Phantasy Star (Online or solo), ThunderForce (Sega owns the IP now), Dragon Force, Ristar, Crazy Taxi, Rez, Fighter's Megamix etc. then I'm all for it.
Nice news to stealth drop on Halloween xD, now I'm gonna go back to playing some games.
Abriael_GN
Yes this announcement's primarily about Sega and Azure, but it's also not out of the realm of possibility that co-funding of some games (possibly exclusive) between Microsoft and Sega could also be a part of this and, in fact, would not be unprecedented between the two of them.
There's no point trying to downplay this as something that isn't gaming-related given that's basically Sega's main business, but I also agree that anyone trying to read too much into this i.e an acquisition should probably stop where they are and not jump the gun, because this is no evidence of that. It's not even particularly evidence of MS co-funding any games for Sega that would be potentially be exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem, but that's a far more realistic possibility than an acquisition and probably a smarter one financially-speaking, at least for the next few years.
I'm particularly interested if Sega integrates Azure with their fog gaming initiative they've already kind of got going for arcades in Japan...well the ones they still happen to own, anyway. Or maybe this could be something they use to re-enter that market (in terms of ownership/running of arcade/FEC game centers in Japan and other parts of Asia) with a different strategy utilizing Azure in some capacity.