With its powerful consoles, convenient streaming service and huge stable of creative developers, Microsoft’s Xbox brand is arguably as strong as it’s ever been.

Yet at the same time, it’s increasingly shifting away from being a like-for-like competitor to Sony’s PlayStation and towards being a fully-fledged arm of a massive tech giant. That’s reflected in the latest offering Xbox has for players going into the holiday season.

Xbox now publishes games on PlayStation and PC, meaning buying one of its own consoles isn’t a requirement for playing most of its games, and thanks to cloud streaming you don’t technically need a console at all. Microsoft’s aquisition of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald