Xbox One release date confirmed for November 22, a week after the PS4

Xbox One release date confirmed for November 22, a week after the PS4

We’re hearing more details about the next-gen consoles every day now, but large swaths of the internet have been worrying that the Xbox One’s launch might slip past November. In spite of the complete reversal on many core design concepts, Microsoft confirmed today that the Xbox One will indeed launch on November 22 in thirteen markets around the world — a mere seven days before Black Friday in the US.

In a blog post today, Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb announced that the Xbox One will officially launch one week after the PS4. Sadly, Microsoft will not be able to keep its promise of launching in 21 countries this November. Instead, only Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States will get the Xbox One on the 22nd of November. Russia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark will have to wait until next year.

On the other hand, the PS4 will launch in 32 countries in 2013 alone. The United States and Canada will be getting the device on November 15, but Europe and Latin America have to wait for November 29. While Microsoft has dominated the gaming market in North America during the last eight years, Sony has continued to hold strong in Europe and Asia. With that in mind, it’s not much of a surprise to see Sony dedicating more resources towards its worldwide launch. If it wasn’t for the massive support throughout Europe, the PS3 might have not even survived this generation. Meanwhile, Microsoft seems dead-set on not losing any ground in the US in the face of widespread backlash.

In a rare turnaround, Microsoft has actually come out on top of Sony in one aspect this week. While the Xbox One will allow for 8 controllers to operate on a single console at once, the PS4 will not. When asked on Twitter how many controllers can operate at once, Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida responded simply with “4.” While that sounds like a substantial win for the Xbox One, this won’t make much of a difference in the real world. For example, the PS3 could connect up to seven controllers at once, but only a handful of games ever supported more than four. As online multiplayer continues to grow, the number of simultaneous controller connections on a single console becomes increasingly irrelevant. Even so, any positive news about the Xbox One is worth mentioning at this point.