Xbox One Release Date Finally Confirmed

Microsoft finally shared the Xbox One release date with eager gamers, confirming the Xbox One will be in stores one week after the PS4 release and a week before Black Friday.

Microsoft is now confirming that users will be able to purchase the Xbox One on store shelves beginning November 22nd, the week after Sony plans on launching its PlayStation 4 console and a week before the holiday buying season officially kicks off in North America after the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Xbox One went into full production this past week according to Microsoft’s Yusef Medi, who spoke on the topic at the Citi Global Technology Conference yesterday. He also announced that the final version of the console would ship with a slightly more powerful processor than the company had originally planned. Instead of a 1.6 GHz processor, the Xbox One that users pick up on November 22nd will feature a 1.75 GHz processor. Microsoft had already confirmed that it would be boosting the console’s GPU from 800 MHz to 853 MHz.

Read: PlayStation 4 vs. Xbox One: Games & Features

Unfortunately, this Xbox One release date is not worldwide. Only users in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, UK and the United States will be able to pick up the console on November 22nd. Microsoft says it’ll roll the console out to more markets in 2014. Those markets will include many Asian countries who were going to be a part of the original launch window this year.

Microsoft also took today’s announcement as an opportunity to hint at sales for the new console. In the post announcing the console’s ship date on the Xbox Wire blog, Yusef Mehdi, noted that the company has seen “tremendous interest in Xbox One from game fans everywhere”. He also indicated that the company had sold out of pre-order consoles faster than it had initially anticipated.

“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.”

The Xbox One is now available for pre-order from every major gaming retailer for $499. That price includes the console itself, one Xbox One wireless controller, the console’s power supply, the newly-upgraded Kinect sensor and a Xbox One Chat headset.

Based on today’s announcement, there could be a few more units available to pick up on the Xbox One release date.