Microsoft Reveals Xbox One Release Date. It Is…
Last month some rumors were going around that the Xbox One’s release date was going to be a week earlier than the PS4’s. Indeed, it made sense: get an extra week or 2 to sell the console before the competition, and you’ll be likely to pick up a few folks who are planning on getting a new console, but don’t necessarily care which one. Well, it turns out that the Xbox One will be coming out a little earlier than the PS4… in Europe.
Instead of going for the rumored November 8th release date, Microsoft announced yesterday that they will be releasing the Xbox One to the 13 launch markets on November 22nd. That’s one week later than the PS4’s North American debut, but 1 week earlier than its Europe/World debut. I can’t exactly say I’m shocked that Microsoft is releasing at this particular date, though it does have some special significance to Microsoft: November 22nd is the same day they released the Xbox 360, back in 2005.
Of course, the release will be limited to 13 countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand. Microsoft originally had planned on releasing in 21 markets in November, but had to scale back those plans as it was too “aggressive”. Still, the countries affected (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland) will get the console sometime in 2014, though it will be possible to import a console from another country and it will work.
