Xbox One hitting 28 Countries this Month

[chavosaur]

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Lets face it, the Console wars are in a dead heat at the moment. By Dead heat, I mean the competition is flopping on the floor and the PS4 is blazing along on a firey domination war path of ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION.​

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*ahem*​

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In any case, Microsoft has been struggling these past few months. While still managing to sell at least 5 million comsoles before having its platform out for one year, the company has been riddled with losses in finance due to Xbox One marketing, and being thrashed by its biggest competition. Most critics believe this is due to the fact Microsoft has only spread its wings slightly over its market share of countries, with the Xbox Platform currently existing in only 13 countries. But rest assured, if you've been waiting for your Xbone *canned laughter* it may be hitting your country next.​

Xbox One launches in 28 countries in September, including China, Russia and Japan, and today Microsoft provides a breakdown of release dates in the new regions. Chile and Columbia get Xbox One today, September 2, while Japan gets it on September 4, China on September 23, and Russia on September 26.

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The largest launch day is September 5, when the Xbox One comes to 16 new countries. Argentina doesn't have an official release date yet, but Microsoft says it will share launch plans in that country shortly. See the release schedule below.​

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The Xbox One's launch in China marks a milestone in the country, since in January it lifted a 14-year ban on foreign console sales.

Source​

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What we have hear folks, is a strategy game hitting the middle ground. While the Xbox Brand has basically no footing in Japan, Microsoft has been attempting to hit home its intention to drive japanese sales with promises of popular Anime TV servicing, and various Japanese games based on popular shows coming out of the woodwork, including exclusives for Japan only.​

Not to mention Microsoft will be the First Video Game platform to be striking China, a country that has held a steady ban on game consoles for 14 years, and only lifted just recently.​

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So what is your opinion folks. Will we see some stirring in the water of the console wars? Could Xbox securing China be a major strategic advantage we never saw coming? Find out next time, On CONSOLE WARS Z.​

 

[WiiUBricker]

well this news post is rather biased.

 

[Taleweaver]

Erm...you forgot to add your source link. I guess it's this one from joystiq.

And with all the puns, it would be nice if you actually included the launch dates. Here they are:


9/2: Chile and Colombia

9/4: Japan

9/5: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates

9/15: Israel

9/23: Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan

9/23: China

9/26: Russia

For gamers in Argentina, we'll have more to share on our launch plans shortly.


While it's certainly an impressive list, I doubt it'll impact sales much. I've already seen plenty of stores that have been selling these consoles for months, which isn't much of a surprise as importing from France or Germany is easy. And with kinect not understanding Dutch (yet?), I sort of wonder who the hell is actually looking forward to the official release date...

 

[DiscostewSM]

Not sure how well it'll do in any other region on that list, but I wanna see how it does in China.

 

[Willemoke]

They postponed the release in the Netherlands by a year, because of localization problems... Guess what, they still haven´t localized it completely, but are releasing it anyway. I wonder what the real deal with the postponing was....

 

[Arras]

Wait, it STILL wasn't released here? I could've sworn it was by now... oh well.

 

[Qtis]

The Xbox One has been on sale for quite a while in Finland, I could go buy it from the stores even now (example). Not sure how much the official launch will change the situation, but we'll see

 

[Gahars]

For those who want to watch the Japanese launch ahead of time...

 

[Veho]

Not sure how much the official launch will change the situation, but we'll see

Advertising, promotions, stuff like that? Might renew interest a bit.

 

[Oxybelis]

For those who want to watch the Japanese launch ahead of time...

This covers any launch in these countries.

 

[Qtis]

Advertising, promotions, stuff like that? Might renew interest a bit.

Sure, but Finland is abysmal in all promotions compared to pretty much every other country in Europe. The PS4 launched at 449e and has stayed relatively close to that price even now. Advertising is still going at 50/50 or even more towards the PS4, which is surprising. But it's a tough market with consoles being early available from other countries for lower prices even after shipping

 

[Sakitoshi]

here in Chile the Xboned has been selling from the initial launch on November 22 last year, most retailers just imported from USA to sell it and most people who is interested on online create USA accounts anyways, so I don't think this will generate a surge of sales over here, but maybe will be enough to rebuild interest.

 

[chavosaur]

Erm...you forgot to add your source link. I guess it's this one from joystiq.

And with all the puns, it would be nice if you actually included the launch dates. Here they are:


9/2: Chile and Colombia

9/4: Japan

9/5: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates

9/15: Israel

9/23: Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan

9/23: China

9/26: Russia

Welp, thanks hyperlink for making me look silly. As for the launch dates, did you uh... did you happen to look at the quote at all? Where it says where it launches on every day you posted in spetember before you posted that I "missed" the dates in september?
Skimming things leads to silliness too

 

[GHANMI]

They postponed the release in the Netherlands by a year, because of localization problems... Guess what, they still haven´t localized it completely, but are releasing it anyway. I wonder what the real deal with the postponing was....

Going by Micro$ previous blunders and arrogance (look at this poster in Rare's HQ omg we own Donkey Kong/ we have something for for those who're not ready for future it's called a 360 / Europe is a country)... I bet they were thinking
"That launch will be so overwhelmingly successful that we won't be able to cover worldwide demand!
Let's delay one year the launch in all of those insignificant countries not called USA
I bet they'll buy it anyways with English commands like it's the second coming of the messiah
Especially Chinese folks who never saw/bought any game console in their life ever until the Xbone!!*
Who needs Japanese junk? Japanese devs will develop games for it anyways even though they won't have any way to sell the games they develop in Japan yet"

* That bit about China is hilarious. China saw all consoles since the NES released officially, and while famiclones were the most popular other consoles were selling just fine (Earthbound/Mother 2 for example had its own Chinese guidebook).
Even Sony had Playstation games specifically geared towards Chinese as late as 2000.
When the embargo came, that didn't even stop people from importing the consoles (the importers have big stands for said imported "illegal" consoles they don't even bother to hide!), or the game devs themselves from localizing the games to Chinese as part of "Asian releases", including PS2, PS3, PSP, and PS Vita stuff, first and third party. Nintendo even found a work-around and outright released officially the Nintendo 64 (iQue), GBA (iQue Advance), DS (iQue DS) and 3DS (iQue 3DS) with first party and even third party support (Namco Bandai mainly).

So, you think Chinese folks will be gazing with awe at the Xbone and saying "ooooooh a real console omg I must buy this marvel whose library appeals so much to my market"?

 

[GameWinner]

Xbox One is launching tomorrow in Japan? It completely slipped by me.

 

[Taleweaver]

Welp, thanks hyperlink for making me look silly. As for the launch dates, did you uh... did you happen to look at the quote at all? Where it says where it launches on every day you posted in spetember before you posted that I "missed" the dates in september?
Skimming things leads to silliness too

Just enough to know that Belgium wasn't listed. Sorry about that.

 

[osaka35]

Not to mention Microsoft will be the First Video Game platform to be striking China, a country that has held a steady ban on game consoles for 14 years, and only lifted just recently.

Just going to ignore the iQue? also, this is relevant:

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Ch...-Laid-Out-Xbox-One-PS4-Wii-U-Games-63609.html

 

[Nathan Drake]

Just going to ignore the iQue? also, this is relevant:

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Ch...-Laid-Out-Xbox-One-PS4-Wii-U-Games-63609.html

Relevant, yet not surprising. China is big on censorship. The odds of them ever saying "yes, just localize games for us as you please with no major restrictions" are slim to none at absolute best. Though, looking at that list of restrictions, what could actually be localized there? I feel like at least one aspect of every game could be worked under one of those censorship rules.

 

[Arras]

Relevant, yet not surprising. China is big on censorship. The odds of them ever saying "yes, just localize games for us as you please with no major restrictions" are slim to none at absolute best. Though, looking at that list of restrictions, what could actually be localized there? I feel like at least one aspect of every game could be worked under one of those censorship rules.

That's the thing. The rules are so broad that your game will only make it through if they decide it's okay. If they don't like it, for whatever reason, they will pretty much always be able to fit it under one of those rules. This could even end in games being forced to include Chinese propaganda if they want to be able to even sell them. (although I personally don't think it'll be THAT bad)

 

[Deleted User]

Wait, it STILL wasn't released here? I could've sworn it was by now... oh well.

nope 5 sept