Xbox One release date announced

UPDATE: Retailers list loads of different bundles.

News by Wesley Yin-Poole Former Editor-in-Chief

Updated on Sept. 5, 2013

UPDATE: Now that the Xbox One release date has been announced retailers like ShopTo and GAME have begun taking pre-orders.

There are several bundle options available. The Day One Edition of Xbox One already comes with a digital copy of FIFA 14, a commemorative controller, wired headset, wireless controller and HDMI cable. Additionally, Shopto has bundles that include Battlefield 4 and £15 of Xbox Live credit for £489.85; a copy of Forza Motorsport 5 and a year subscription of Xbox Live Gold for £499.85; Dead Rising 3 with the same Gold subscription for £519.85; or a second wireless controller with a year-long Gold subscription for £504.85.

Curiously, both Game and Amazon have a listings for an Xbox One Day One Edition that includes Forza Motorsport 5 instead of FIFA 14 for the same standard price of £429.99. My hunch is that this isn't a proper Day One edition, but rather the standard Xbox One with Forza included in lieu of FIFA, but I'm following up with Microsoft to see if this is the case. More on that when I hear back.

ORIGINAL STORY: Xbox One launches on 22nd November in 13 territories including the US and the UK, Microsoft has announced.

Marketing executive Yusuf Mehdi also revealed in a statement that additional Day One Editions of the next-gen console would be made available to help meet the expected demand.

Here is Mehdi's full statement announcing the launch:

First, we hit an important milestone as we began full production of the Xbox One console recently. The culmination of many years of listening to you, our fans, developing innovative technology, and partnering with the best game and entertainment partners in the industry has brought us to this point. There is still a lot more work to do, but the teams are making excellent progress and are focused on launch.

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.

Finally, in the spirit of continuing to bring new value and excitement to Xbox, 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.

And I have to mention the games - Xbox One is proving to be the best place for games, with our exclusive games winning over 100 awards at E3, driving pre-order increases of 200% in European markets after gamers first played our blockbuster line-up at gamescom, and blowing away thousands of fans at PAX Prime this weekend. Only on Xbox One will you find exclusive blockbusters like Halo, Dead Rising 3, Ryse: Son of Rome and Forza Motorsport 5; new digital content from titles like coming Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 coming to Xbox One first; and the FIFA 14 Ultimate Team experience you won't find anywhere else.

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.

Rival console PlayStation 4 releases on 15th November in the US and 29th November in the UK.

Xbox One costs £429 in the UK, although those who pre-order the Day One Edition also get a free digital copy of FIFA 14.

23 games have been confirmed for release on day one. They are: