Confirming the recent “late November launch” contest disclaimer, Microsoft has officially announced that they will release the Xbox One into 13 markets on November 22nd, 2013 for $499/€499/£429.
The launch date was revealed this morning in a blog post on Major Nelson, which reads:
“Today we are announcing that Xbox One will be available on Friday November 22, 2013 in all 13 of our initial launch markets – Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, UK, and USA. Many more markets will follow in 2014.”
Xbox One’s November 22nd release date puts the next-gen console in the unique position of being 7 days behind Sony’s PlayStation 4 in North America (November 19th) and 7 days ahead of their European launch (November 22nd). The early European release combined with the limited FIFA 14 offer could potentially give the Xbox One an important advantage, however, this will be somewhat offset by the relatively small number of markets that Microsoft is launching in.
The reveal of the Xbox One’s launch date comes less than a week after Microsoft announced that activist investor ValueAct Capital will be joining the company’s board of directors. ValueAct president Mason Morfit is reported to have the sale of the Xbox division as part of his agenda, which puts some extra pressure on the Xbox One to meet sales expectations when it launches on November 22nd.