Microsoft has officially confirmed that the Xbox One will be coming out Nov. 22, one week after the PlayStation 4 is release on Nov. 15. The company announced this news through an official press release written by marketing executive Yusuf Mehdi which can be found in full on Eurogamer. The company also announced that more Day One Editions of the console will be released to meet the increased demand for the console:
"Speaking of launch, we're now in a position to share that Xbox One will be available on 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.
We are humbled and gratified by the tremendous interest in Xbox One from game fans everywhere. We sold out of our pre-order supply faster than at any other time in our history and we are on path to have the biggest launch of an Xbox ever. We look forward to celebrating with millions and millions of gamers this holiday.
As a result of this incredible consumer demand and the development progress on Xbox One, I am thrilled to share that today we are making available a limited number of additional Xbox One Day One consoles for pre-order. We have coordinated with our retail partners to make it easy for you to reserve your Xbox One today."
Microsoft may have picked Nov 22 as the day to launch the console, due to the fact that, in 2005, the Xbox 360 was launched on that date as well:
"November 22 is a special day in Xbox history - on this day, we first launched Xbox 360 [in the US] in 2005. Our next chapter begins in 79 days, when Xbox One becomes available. We built Xbox One to bring you the best games, unrivalled multiplayer and more entertainment than ever before. It's nearly time to say "Xbox On" and open a new world of games and entertainment."
The company also revealed that they have tweaked the specs of the console to make it perform even better when it launches, adding more CPU power to the Xbox One:
"I am also pleased to confirm that the development team has increased the CPU from 1.6GHz to 1.75GHz, roughly a 10% increase in CPU performance. This is on top of the 6% increase we previously announced for the GPU. What does this mean to you the gamer? It means that the Xbox One will have that much more power for developers to make their games and entertainment really shine. We're going to keep bringing more value to the Xbox One as we head towards launch building on some of the advancements we have already shared such as the 40-plus improvements to the Xbox One controller, advancements to help you find the perfect opponent and make the most of our online community, to the power of the cloud." The Xbox One will cost $500 at its release date, which is $100 more than the PS4.
November is shaping up to be quite the month, and now gamers have one of the big questions of the year finally put to rest.
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