Now that the dust has settled on Xbox’s and PlayStation’s big summer showcases, it’s a good time to compare them and look for evidence of where each company is heading — or thinks it’s heading. Related Xbox bets big on 2024, hopes to avoid last year’s mistake Sea of Thieves and Flight Simulator are much less aggressively monetized than other games in their relative spaces, and they can be updated in novel ways to suit, whether that’s via an in-game crossover event or an expansion-sequel hybrid that would be a much riskier bet without the comfortable umbrella of Game Pass grouping it all together. The extent to which this untapped audience really exists will determine whether Microsoft’s more relaxed approach to the business of making games is the future, or just a pleasant blip