Xbone only in 13 countries in 2013, big delay, DOA in Europe

[Cerveza mas fina]

Xbone not launching in 2013 in Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Russia.

Seems there is some big delay, also PS4 was outselling Xbone 4:1 in pre orders...

 

This thing is so doa in Europe

Today we’re providing an update to our launch plans for Xbox One. At Xbox, our goal is to provide the best games and entertainment experience possible and the team continues to make great progress on delivering Xbox One.

At E3, we announced that Xbox One would be available in 21 markets around the world at launch. This was an aggressive goal and the team has been working very hard to deliver Xbox One to as many markets as possible.

Our priority is ensuring our customers get the best Xbox One experience the first day it is available. To do that, and in order to meet demand, we have adjusted the number of markets that will receive Xbox One in November to 13 markets, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand, in November.

We remain committed to launching Xbox One in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, as soon as possible in 2014.

While we wish we could launch Xbox One simultaneously in these markets, there are many factors that determine the timing of specific market launches. This includes work to localize the Xbox One dash, incorporate additional voice and languages, and build partnerships to bring apps and meaningful local content to each country.

We understand this will be disappointing news for our fans in the impacted countries, and we are doing everything we can to bring Xbox One to you as soon as possible next year.

If you are in these markets and have questions about your pre-order, please contact the local retailer where you placed your pre-order. To show our appreciation for your patience, if you have already preordered an Xbox One Day One system before today in those countries, you will also receive a pack-in game with your console when it launches.*

Thank you for your patience – we are grateful for your support and remain committed to delivering the best Xbox One experience for your market.

[archnemesis]

Aw, that's unfortunate. The 360 is actually quite popular in Scandinavia and Benelux. Giving the PS4 a head start is a mistake, but I suppose they want to prioritize their most important markets.

[Cerveza mas fina]

WAS relatively popular (meaning like 2:1 in favour of PS3 only). I don't think people will wait for 6 months to play COD/FIFA.

[MCD]

Both available on Xbox 360.

[Tasty]

Xbone has been US-centric from the start, this doesn't surprise me.

[pilonv1]

New Zealand > most of Yurop

[Shaka Khan]

Hmm, something definitely smells here. 21 regions wasn't that big of a goal.  Cutting more than a third of them really lends weight to that rumour about production issues.

Definitely. Throwing in an extra game makes it even more suspect.

[Sho Nuff]

Have they not done this before?

I can't remember if 360 launched worldwide or not, I thought there was a delay for Japan

[pilonv1]

p. sure US was November 2005, Europe was March 2006. I don't think they've segmented Europe before.

[Himu]

Everything about this console screams half baked.

[Trent Dole]

This thing is so fucked, lol.

[thisismyusername]

Everything about this console screams half baked.

Don Mattrick certainly was half-baked.

Have they not done this before?

I can't remember if 360 launched worldwide or not, I thought there was a delay for Japan

360 had a half-staggered release but it wasn't as fucked at launch as the next launch. Cutting Europe into smaller pieces. Are they serious?

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

of course we're all assuming that this time Microsoft is really, honestly, truly going to make a defect-free system that doesn't ever need to be replaced or repaired.
and if there were production delays/problems, its not at all endemic to the build quality of the console itself.

this was typed with sarcasm.

[Rufus]

They put a huge cooler on it, the case doesn't seem too crammed and I wouldn't be surprised if it shut down if it reached a high enough temperature to prevent any damage. If this becomes a problem again then that's just pathetic, but I see something else breaking first.

[MCD]

http://gizmodo.com/the-xbox-one-can-tell-when-its-overheating-and-power-1122442616

And it's a shitty laptop spec operating at 100 watt or so. Overheating won't be an issue but you know, things break.

[archnemesis]

After reading Microsoft's statement about the delay, it seems like the biggest issue is localizing voice recognition.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Why even bother with localizing that for the countries that will launch so late

1. No one will buy it
2. Benelux and Scandinavia have amazing English skills
3. Voice recognition is always a clusterfuck

[archnemesis]

I think it will sell okay here. Xbox has great brand recognition and many will go for the X1 simply for their friends list and gamerscore. Trying to localize it for niche languages and differentiating between closely related relatives isn't a trivial task. I'm assuming they're relying on some external voice recognition library and there you likely have better support for common languages like English, Spanish, French, and German.

[archnemesis]

After reading Microsoft's statement about the delay, it seems like the biggest issue is localizing voice recognition.

or so microsoft says.  they're not likely to say "we're getting shitty yields on this thing, plz buy at launch again".

I trust CBoaT and I'm sure they're having yield problems. Despite that I think there are other issues as well. The Scandinavian market is so small that they could divert some of those extra pre-orders they gave to Amazon and that would be enough to cater to our tech enthusiasts.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Arch the Xbone EU localisation is being done in Seattle, but not by MS (its being done by Keywords). I dunno if they are recording stuff there too, but thats where the testing is now.

[archnemesis]

They're probably training support vector machines to deal with different dialects.

[maxy]

Those countries are part of the Sonyland(according to Sonyfanturds).Nothing changes then...Sonyland stays Sonyland*.




*Appleland

[MCD]

Posted by cboat.

MS is getting rid of online based regional account system. Now it's just like Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 store: You want to move or change region? Go to settings and do that!