All Xbox 360 launch dates announced; in US on Nov. 22

By Dan Choi

As expected, Microsoft has officially announced the launch date for the Xbox 360 in each of its three most strategically important regions today, one day before the start of the Tokyo Game Show. The specific launch dates,
listed by region, are as follows:

  • North America – Tuesday, November 22, 2005

  • Europe – Friday, December 2, 2005

  • Japan – Saturday, December 10, 2005

Manufacturing of the Xbox 360 has begun, with millions of final units being planned to ship all around the world.
This should mark "the first time that a game console will be launched in three territories in the same time frame."

The staggered release dates mesh with Robbie Bach?s claim
earlier today that there would be a lag of 7-10 days between launches in North America, Europe, and Japan, though there is just over a week?s delay from the launch in North America to that of Europe, and then a similar delay from that of Europe to the one in Japan. Semantics aside, the intervals between launches themselves do fit with his earlier statements, and the announced dates finally put to rest all the rumored release
dates bandied about before. MS also gains from added time and manufacturing capacity by launching closer to the end of November, while making the crucial post-Thanksgiving shopping season (and narrowly avoiding the frenzied weekend directly following Thanksgiving Day, November 24).

Not only that, Microsoft announced the price of the Xbox 360 in Japan as well. It will be ?37,900 (yen), which is
currently equivalent to 342.46 USD. At first, we imagined that this would be the price of the 360 Core system, as opposed to the more premium bundle that comes with a built-in hard drive for $400, but it is not: 37,900 JPY will get Japanese gamers the 360 with a detachable 20GB HDD, as well as all the bundled extras Americans were expecting for
nearly $60 more (44,231 JPY, to be exact).
Granted, demand for Microsoft?s machine is lower there than over here?and our friends in Europe will be paying
still more?but how about granting us those prices in the U.S., too? We?d be sure to appreciate it.

[UPDATE: Finally, we?ve pulled together
this somewhat sharpened original-pixel crop of the light-green tag on the arm of the assembly-line worked pictured up top. What this could mean is that Assembly of the final 360s began at the end of June, but the BOX Packing date is sufficiently garbled so that we can?t conclusively state that it ?began? in August instead of two months earlier. Whether packing dates matter much in light of console assembly dates, however, is another question altogether. Thanks for the tip, anyway,
djk!

Uh, further UPDATE: The TGS Press-Kit link my top pic points to is currently down. Maybe the folks at MS are taking a hard look at that badge now? Will another press kit take its place? So many questions? The old Press-Kit image downloads for Xbox 360 titles (that were on our old linked page) are now available up here, but our
two
favorite manufacturing pics aren?t. So sad.]

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