Xbox One Will Launch In Just 13 Countries

[tdylan]

...in order to meet demand, we have adjusted the number of markets that will receive Xbox One in November to 13 markets....

I absolutely adore the marketing spin of saying we have adjusted the number of markets, as opposed to we have decreased the number of markets.

Also, can someone explain the logic to me? In order to meet the demand, they've reduced the number of people to whom the the console will be available? And that makes sense? Don't you usually go about meeting demand by increasing production, not by reducing the number of units?

 

[SeventhSigil]

What I find particularly interesting is that Mexico is included in the list of remaining countries. Last time I heard, after currency conversion, the Xbox One was a full $200 more expensive than the PS4. Now, this could have been a rumor or changed since, but if not, either they're expecting the sales to be successful nonetheless, or they have different criteria for selecting which countries remained. Or, as said, could indeed be an issue with voice integration.

Ok, I'll bite. Why does it surprise you that much? Of the console gamers I know here, most people have an XBox 360, not a PS3, and almost every major mall has one or two console games shop. Blockbuster is still alive in this country in no small part thanks to their console/game rent and sale division. Mexico is the biggest Spanish speaking market, and I can bet they already have localization in this language. Microsoft environments (Windows, Xbox, growing Windows Phone) have greater acceptance and penetration than other regions. Close geographical location to the US reduces shipment, I guess, plus international trade agreements with Mexico allow for more efficient and maybe cheaper export. Cost wise, console gamers tend to be in an income bracket that can allow themselves to buy a new console. The market that couldn't probably doesn't even know the thing exists, so the price isn't even a concern. It could be 300 dollars cheaper than a pS4 and it would still be out of their league. I bet there are even more reasons I don't know, but I think that's why Mexico is in the short list.

Fair enough, my surprise was namely because I'm uncertain which of the console's additional features are available in that region. If the gap between the extraneous capabilities of the two consoles, by which I mean entertainment features primarily, is narrower in that region than it is in the United States, then if anything the price difference is even more extensive. Not because you're incapable of spending the extra $200, but because you would have to really, really love Halo and Co. to spend the extra cash. Short of the available exclusives, I'm wondering what else the console is offering over its competitors to justify that price difference. And if there isn't much extra being offered, I wonder how much those exclusives are going to smooth over the price difference. Microsoft could indeed sell more consoles than the competition in that region, but it looks like they have a bit of an uphill battle.

In case you misinterpreted, I didn't mean to say anything like 'hahaha why Mexico poor rofl.' And I certainly wasn't suggesting that it was not a worthwhile market to pursue. I was just wondering, as you have suggested, if the reason for including it might not be expected dominance in the region, (Especially since success in the current generation is no guarantee of success in the subsequent one, as Sony learned the hard way with the PS3,) but rather for ease of location, the fact that it already has been properly translated, so on and so forth. It was just a comment relating to the wider question, which is why the specific countries have been included and others have been excluded. Whether it comes down to numbers in terms of units ordered versus units available requiring a squeeze of the unlucky few, or for some technical reason specific to the excluded countries.

 

[Callate]

I imagine that even as we speak, the CD Projekt people are glaring and clearing their throats.

 

[Yarpie]

Well I suppose they had to make up for actually getting rid of the Kincet-requirement, can't have a week with just good (well, half decent at least) press. Seriously, didn't anyone think to plan ahead with all this? Revisions left and right, features added and removed every week, faulty launch announcements? Christ, if you're in the middle of basically remodeling the whole damn thing, just keep your mouth shut until you have a projection you can actually follow through on.

And of course, great job on kneecapping yourself before the race has even started by giving the PS4 a head start in several European markets. Now they have, price, reputation, availability and an earlier launch on their side. I reckon that if one were to script a poorly handled unveiling/launch of a console, it would look pretty much identical to this.

 

[Casual Shinji]

"While we wish we could launch Xbox One simultaneously in these markets, there are many factors that determine the timing of specific market launches.

These factors apparently have no effect on the launch of the PS4, which is launching pretty much everywhere at the same time.

Well, except for Europe which will likely get shafted once the preorder supplies run dry. Sony basically admitted this already. But nothing new on that front, I guess.

Anyway, Sony really couldn't ask for a better wingman than Microsoft at this point. The more Microsoft fucks up, the less we focus on all of Sony's bs.

 

[shiajun]

What I find particularly interesting is that Mexico is included in the list of remaining countries. Last time I heard, after currency conversion, the Xbox One was a full $200 more expensive than the PS4. Now, this could have been a rumor or changed since, but if not, either they're expecting the sales to be successful nonetheless, or they have different criteria for selecting which countries remained. Or, as said, could indeed be an issue with voice integration.

Ok, I'll bite. Why does it surprise you that much? Of the console gamers I know here, most people have an XBox 360, not a PS3, and almost every major mall has one or two console games shop. Blockbuster is still alive in this country in no small part thanks to their console/game rent and sale division. Mexico is the biggest Spanish speaking market, and I can bet they already have localization in this language. Microsoft environments (Windows, Xbox, growing Windows Phone) have greater acceptance and penetration than other regions. Close geographical location to the US reduces shipment, I guess, plus international trade agreements with Mexico allow for more efficient and maybe cheaper export. Cost wise, console gamers tend to be in an income bracket that can allow themselves to buy a new console. The market that couldn't probably doesn't even know the thing exists, so the price isn't even a concern. It could be 300 dollars cheaper than a pS4 and it would still be out of their league. I bet there are even more reasons I don't know, but I think that's why Mexico is in the short list.

Fair enough, my surprise was namely because I'm uncertain which of the console's additional features are available in that region. If the gap between the extraneous capabilities of the two consoles, by which I mean entertainment features primarily, is narrower in that region than it is in the United States, then if anything the price difference is even more extensive. Not because you're incapable of spending the extra $200, but because you would have to really, really love Halo and Co. to spend the extra cash. Short of the available exclusives, I'm wondering what else the console is offering over its competitors to justify that price difference. And if there isn't much extra being offered, I wonder how much those exclusives are going to smooth over the price difference. Microsoft could indeed sell more consoles than the competition in that region, but it looks like they have a bit of an uphill battle.

In case you misinterpreted, I didn't mean to say anything like 'hahaha why Mexico poor rofl.' And I certainly wasn't suggesting that it was not a worthwhile market to pursue. I was just wondering, as you have suggested, if the reason for including it might not be expected dominance in the region, (Especially since success in the current generation is no guarantee of success in the subsequent one, as Sony learned the hard way with the PS3,) but rather for ease of location, the fact that it already has been properly translated, so on and so forth. It was just a comment relating to the wider question, which is why the specific countries have been included and others have been excluded. Whether it comes down to numbers in terms of units ordered versus units available requiring a squeeze of the unlucky few, or for some technical reason specific to the excluded countries.

No worries, I didn't take it like that at all. Your surprise made me think about the issue as well, and that's when I came up with all of those reasons. I think you said it well, they will launch on markets that they believe they will dominate. The PS3s initial costly and botched launch did reduce a lot of people's link or knowledge of the system, and adoption rate swayed to Xbox. You can even notice the relevance culturally through mispronunciation of the Xbox brand, which comes from wide use even in lower-income brackets with lower grasp of english. Playstation doesn't appear to have that impact. So, I guess MS is really confident of their dominance over here. Netflix and Skype have had a rise in adoption as well (Skype probably because of all the migration from Messenger), so maybe that won't be much of a problem. Where I do see a problem is in the broadband implementation. It's still rather sketchy in a lot of parts, even big city centers, and connectivity can be truly intermittent. The reliance of the Xbox One these services might be its Achilles' heel.

 

[-Dragmire-]

How in the fuck does Microsoft not have localization done yet!? The system was likely built with windows so it should already support something like 100 languages. Is dedicated focused marketing ads really worth a delay?

 

[SeventhSigil]

What I find particularly interesting is that Mexico is included in the list of remaining countries. Last time I heard, after currency conversion, the Xbox One was a full $200 more expensive than the PS4. Now, this could have been a rumor or changed since, but if not, either they're expecting the sales to be successful nonetheless, or they have different criteria for selecting which countries remained. Or, as said, could indeed be an issue with voice integration.

Ok, I'll bite. Why does it surprise you that much? Of the console gamers I know here, most people have an XBox 360, not a PS3, and almost every major mall has one or two console games shop. Blockbuster is still alive in this country in no small part thanks to their console/game rent and sale division. Mexico is the biggest Spanish speaking market, and I can bet they already have localization in this language. Microsoft environments (Windows, Xbox, growing Windows Phone) have greater acceptance and penetration than other regions. Close geographical location to the US reduces shipment, I guess, plus international trade agreements with Mexico allow for more efficient and maybe cheaper export. Cost wise, console gamers tend to be in an income bracket that can allow themselves to buy a new console. The market that couldn't probably doesn't even know the thing exists, so the price isn't even a concern. It could be 300 dollars cheaper than a pS4 and it would still be out of their league. I bet there are even more reasons I don't know, but I think that's why Mexico is in the short list.

Fair enough, my surprise was namely because I'm uncertain which of the console's additional features are available in that region. If the gap between the extraneous capabilities of the two consoles, by which I mean entertainment features primarily, is narrower in that region than it is in the United States, then if anything the price difference is even more extensive. Not because you're incapable of spending the extra $200, but because you would have to really, really love Halo and Co. to spend the extra cash. Short of the available exclusives, I'm wondering what else the console is offering over its competitors to justify that price difference. And if there isn't much extra being offered, I wonder how much those exclusives are going to smooth over the price difference. Microsoft could indeed sell more consoles than the competition in that region, but it looks like they have a bit of an uphill battle.

In case you misinterpreted, I didn't mean to say anything like 'hahaha why Mexico poor rofl.' And I certainly wasn't suggesting that it was not a worthwhile market to pursue. I was just wondering, as you have suggested, if the reason for including it might not be expected dominance in the region, (Especially since success in the current generation is no guarantee of success in the subsequent one, as Sony learned the hard way with the PS3,) but rather for ease of location, the fact that it already has been properly translated, so on and so forth. It was just a comment relating to the wider question, which is why the specific countries have been included and others have been excluded. Whether it comes down to numbers in terms of units ordered versus units available requiring a squeeze of the unlucky few, or for some technical reason specific to the excluded countries.

No worries, I didn't take it like that at all. Your surprise made me think about the issue as well, and that's when I came up with all of those reasons. I think you said it well, they will launch on markets that they believe they will dominate. The PS3s initial costly and botched launch did reduce a lot of people's link or knowledge of the system, and adoption rate swayed to Xbox. You can even notice the relevance culturally through mispronunciation of the Xbox brand, which comes from wide use even in lower-income brackets with lower grasp of english. Playstation doesn't appear to have that impact. So, I guess MS is really confident of their dominance over here. Netflix and Skype have had a rise in adoption as well (Skype probably because of all the migration from Messenger), so maybe that won't be much of a problem. Where I do see a problem is in the broadband implementation. It's still rather sketchy in a lot of parts, even big city centers, and connectivity can be truly intermittent. The reliance of the Xbox One these services might be its Achilles' heel.

Okay, good. ^_^; The only other thing that struck me as odd about it, even a bit unfair, was that by far the price difference there is the highest I have seen. I'm kind of a research not, so I had Examined the post-conversion price differences for the U.K., Other European regions, Australia, and even New Zealand. There are price differences in all of them, and generally speaking they're higher than the price differences in the United States, but Mexico has the largest discrepancy. Considering it's geographic proximity to the U.S., As compared to Australia that is literally its own continent, it's just... well, sounds childish, but just seems unfair to the region. xP Particularly given their prior attachment to the brand. Though perhaps there are some trade issues or other legal bits I'm missing that accounts for it.

Anyway, going to be keeping an eye on the area after launch, as I am actually really curious now as to how the reversal in price differences (Microsoft being at the pricing disadvantage Sony was this time around) will affect its attachment rate. Even the $100 difference might be hurting them in North America. If they had gone with a $200 difference as well, there'd probably be riots in the streets. xP

 

[Erttheking]

Jesus fucking Christ, just when you think Microsoft can get any lower they carve out the 8th, 9th AND 10th levels of Hell.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Manufacturing problems. Gotta be. No way it could be anything else. They had to have the whole launch thing planned before E3. I think things made a turn for the worse when Sony announced the PS4 and it's 8Gb of GDDR5. Then Microsoft decided to add 32mb of eSRAM to stay competitive because their initial console had less memory bandwidth than most PCs. Then rumors started floating around how that is causing some overheating problems. Then we had reports of games crashing on Xbone. They seem to be having some serious issues with the machine. And they fix the problems and manufacture enough Xbones for launch in 21 country.

Even with their policy shifts, I don't feel comfortable giving my money to someone who seems to be completely incompetent and doesn't give a shit about the consumers.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

ITT: Everyone gets ticked off at Microsoft for having technical difficulties.

big difference between "oh shit, our console is shit!" and "yea, fuck all the other countries not on this list."

Pretty sure it's not the latter or even the former very much.

Ironically, there have been rumors floating about that the issue is primarily related to the integration of voice and languages above all else. More specifically, that the markets being left out of are because they don't think they can integrate proper voice controls in time for the excluded countries. Whether or not this is the case is anyone's guess.

I also wonder whether maybe it is because of the recent inclusion of a headset in every box. While it's a minor change, it probably has increased the quantity of headset units they're going to have to produce by launch astronomically, and depending on what manufacturing resources they have to Meet the demand, they might be squeezing to meet quota in the 13 remaining launch Countries.

 

[Hades]

I can't buy the localization excuse. What's there to localise in the Dutch market? We never dub games into Dutch and in most cases the only Dutch words you'll find in your video games are in the instruction manual.

 

[LordMonty]

I think sony have only got to really worry about stocking heavy in certain regions now... its actually going to screw over some of those left out as sony sure up the UK and US for preorders of ps4s to make sure microsoft is kept at bay there. But here's hoping sony do well coping with demand as they're now gonig to be in very very high demand.

 

[carpathic]

I swear that microsoft is trying to gimp this system. It is almost like they do not want to sell any Xbones.

I was almost getting excited about the possibility of a New Elder Scrolls on the Xbone, or a new Fallout - but everytime I start to get excited about anything on this damn system, they just give me one more reason to simply not care.

Curious, extremely curious.

 

[search_rip]

you know, I live in México, I do have a pre-order for an Xbox One Day One Edition (made it after the no DRM 180 update) but every new "news" about the Xbone makes me wanna cancel :S

 

[The_Echo]

As someone who never had any interest in owning an Xbox, at this point it's just plain fun to see how many different ways Microsoft can flounder about with this console.

Oh, it's because of TV and Skype. The two most important features of the Xbone now that Kinect isn't mandatory.

You're forgetting advertisements.

They need to localize advertisements.

 

[fix-the-spade]

No Japan? One of the biggest game markets in the world?even if MS has historically done poorly there?and they're not going to launch there. This will prove to be a mistake when a lot of Japanese games end up being PS4 exclusives.

P.S. Thanks

360 sales in Japan total 1.5 to 2 million, for the last year the monthly sales figures for the 360 have been in the low hundreds. It's not worth chasing Japan for Microsoft, all the localisation to sell 300 units a month, they have even bigger problems right now.

PS, dev kits are usually region free. If they sell enough Xbones the big Jap publishers will come, as for the smaller developers, they often stay Japan only anyway, even if they didn't we know how Microsoft feels about independent developers.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Also, can someone explain the logic to me? In order to meet the demand, they've reduced the number of people to whom the the console will be available? And that makes sense?

Makes perfect sense, there is no demand, so they have adjusted to compensate. They don't want to be sat on a few million unsold Stock Keeping Units the way Nintendo was with the Gamecube (and is again with the Wii U).

They are meeting demand, but probably not in the direction they hoped.

 

[stabnex]

Getting real tired of your shit, Microsoft. You know what? Do us all a favor, and cut United States out of that list. We. Don't. Want. It. ANYMORE!

 

[BrownGaijin]

"We understand this will be disappointing news for our fans..."

Wait, Xbox still has fans?

No but seriously Microsoft just keeps shooting itself in the foot while Playstation sits back and does nothing. My Lord.

One that note I would like to bestow the Xbox one a new pet name: The Xbox 0.1, because it's only coming out in one tenth of the region of its predecessor.