If you're an Xbox fan who felt jilted by Microsoft's decision last year to limit the launch of its new console to just a handful of markets, take heart: This month, Xbox One will launch in 29 additional markets, just in time for the crucial second holiday games wave.
You may recall that Microsoft in 2013 decided to dramatically cut back on the number of markets in which it would launch Xbox One in 2014, stating at the time that it would expand the reach of the console in 2014. (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland were all originally going to be part of the original 2013 launch.) In March, the firm revealed that this wouldn't happen, however, until September.
Hey, it's September!
Over the course of this month, Xbox One is launching in Belgium, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. (Argentina is TBD.)
Here are the dates:
September 2: Chile and Colombia
September 4: Japan
September 5: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates
September 15: Israel
September 23: Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan
September 23: China
September 26: Russia
TBD: Argentina
As for games, let's be honest. Xbox One is great and everything. But the list of gotta-have-it games on this console—especially exclusive titles—is decidedly thin. Granted, that problem isn't unique to Xbox, and there's even less going on with the PlayStation 4. But it won't hurt to get more and better games.
Key among these titles is Destiny, of course. It's not an Xbox One (or even Xbox) exclusive, but this title was made by key members of the teams behind the Halo series at Bungie, so there's bound to be a lot of fans on Xbox waiting to see how it all pans out. And that game launches at midnight tonight, so depending on where you are, you could already be playing. (And if you do want to get Destiny, you can preorder it digitally on Xbox One and it will download ahead of the launch so you get started immediately at midnight.)
