Xbox One Set To Launch On November 22

Dave Knott writes "Microsoft announced today that its upcoming Xbox One console will launch later this year on November 22 in 13 territories, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. This is exactly one week after the announced street date for Sony's PlayStation 4, ending speculation about whether Microsoft would try to launch ahead of their closest rival's next-generation console. It is also the same day that the Xbox 360 launched in 2005." The supply of pre-order consoles is mostly exhausted already.

All the Backpedaled DRM....

[Lumpy]

Set to be silently put back in Januray 22 2014 with the first large software update....

Re:All the Backpedaled DRM....

[gstoddart]

Yup, they've tipped their hand as to where they're going, and eventually it will be the always on crap and everything else that pissed people off.

I think I'm more likely to buy a spare current-gen XBox than even consider the next one.

I just don't trust that Microsoft won't hold off a bit and then push out an update which does everything they've backed off from.

Re:Not the least bit interested in buying one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Other things would be off topic in this post, wouldn't they?

This just in...

[wbr1]

Home audio/video monitoring device that the government can use, willingly PAID FOR by millions.

Artificial artificial scarcity

[EmperorOfCanada]

Artificial artificial scarcity is going to be the name of this campaign. They don't want real scarcity as that could hurt their probably crap sales. But they want to be able to show the people lining up for days to get one. So I suspect they are going to spin this in some sleazy ways. A few sleazy ideas would be things like having a best buy in a really poor area offer the XBox at 80% off for the first 500 customers. This would then get at least 500 customers lined up for a week or more. You could also have other offers such as contests where you have a 1 in 5 chance of winning either the XBox or a trip or something. Or if worse comes to worse they could just hire actors.

Once they have the scarcity going they will do a huge PR campaign first to promote these 3 week long line-ups and then trying to get the world convinced that there are very few XBoxes in their local retailer. They could then work with the retailers to somehow do something like say 1 store in town has 500 while the other stores only have 50. Which store is it? Then people line up and all find that they were lucky enough to be at the store with 500 as they all had 500.

Lastly we are all going to be reading reviews from Console Times or other made up reviewers saying that this is a "Game Changer" and that while the PS4 is a slight upgrade that the new XBox is revolutionary, a paradigm shift, customer oriented, the only console that will survive.

But the worst is going to be in "Votable" forums like the Slashdots and Reddits; where they nodoubt have an army of voters seeking out to kill the bad reviews and promote the shill reviews. A simple example of this would be in any MS related Slashdot posting the anti MS positions are voted down initially but after a while they resurface and then become the norm. My guess is that the PR firms have a limited number of Karma points at any time and try to steer the mood at the beginning but then run out of ammunition.

Re:Sorry..

[ackthpt]

So what is the alternative?
Even Steambox has DRM.

Windows 7 and 8 basically are DRM, they even downgrade Blu-ray if you play it over a non-HDCP protected path.

Go outside and play.

That's the better alternative.

Re:Sorry..

[Anonymous Coward]

So a CD is classified as hardware now? And please note, while you say Sony it was actually just the music part, the US bit at that. And they did it all without approval from the top, you know, head office in Japan.

So, while you still berate Sony do you still buy Microsoft products? You do know all the anti-competitive things they have done, don't you? Or are you just a hypocrite?

Re:Sorry..

[TWiTfan]

You obviously don't have to work with anything on the web, because the pain inflicted by Microsoft on the countless web developers over the years is still fresh and ongoing for many.

Uh, I've been doing web development since before IE (and even Netscape) existed, and I don't know wtf you're talking about. When IE came out, I added it as a test platform just like Netscape. As it got more popular, I targeted it more (same as I've done with iOS Safari in recent years). The only people I've ever seen tearing any hair out over a new browser were fucking drama queens who refused to adapt, or thought that standards should be a license for laziness.