Xbox One delay explained

Localisation issues to blame for hold up in eight territories.
Text: Mike Holmes
Published 2013-08-27

Since the announcement, there has been plenty of speculation as to the reason behind Microsoft's decision to delay the launch of Xbox One in eight territories. The company's head of product development, Albert Penello, has come out and explained that the reason behind the delay is down to localisation issues surrounding the Kinect.
 
"I think people are using the way [voice] works on Xbox 360," he explained to OXM, "which was an accessory we built five years after release, as how it's going to work here."

"But it's so much more elegant and so much more integrated, and in many ways it's a lot faster and more convenient. Whereas on Xbox 360 it's a lesser version of doing the thing you're used to doing on your controller. This is the part of the internet that's frustrating, because everybody wants to assume there's a [units volume] issue. And yet I'm showing real hardware here at Gamescom - a real, final, retail kit. Which I have yet to see my friends show me."

"People assume there's a volume issue which in fact there isn't. You're actually seeing pre-orders pop back up now because we're able allocate the countries' volumes back in. It's there, the problem is localisation. And once people see the system and how integral it is, it's not just text integration."

"But at the same time we said, this is a region-free console. In regions like Switzerland where people speak German and French, they can get a German or French console. It'll work fine. They can log in to their marketplace, use their language, we don't geo-fence Live or any of the content any more. We don't have official language support - but the console still works."

Still no word on an official release date, but the latest rumours suggest that Xbox One could be launching as early as November 8.

Back