Retailers can be an early source for release date information as they typically are privy to dates before a studio or publisher’s marketing and publicity arms are cleared to formally announce them. Sometimes retailers will let the date slip onto their sites either intentionally or by accident, as seems to have happened with the Xbox One release date and online retailer Amazon.com.
Amazon began pre-selling Xbox One Day One pre-orders for $499 a pop two weeks ago today. At the time those pre-orders originally went live, the retailer was listing a generic December 31, 2013 release date as a placeholder to indicate that yes, the console would be out this year, but no, they don’t know exactly when.
Sometime within the past several days, Amazon updated the Xbox One listing to include a November 27, 2013 release date. I had to take a quick peek at a calendar as that date seemed awfully late in the month and might miss the popular Black Friday shopping day right after Thanksgiving and subsequent weekend. This year, Black Friday falls on November 29, so the Xbox One release date seems to be right in line with targeting the busiest and most successful shopping day of the entire year.
Sony’s PS4 pre-orders at Amazon still list the placeholder release date as Sony doesn’t appear ready to let a U.S. retailer in on their plans. Or if they have, retailers are under strict instructions not to publish the information. However, over the weekend a brick-and-mortar retailer in the Netherlands hung up an official looking poster that claims a November 13 PS4 release date. If true, and if the date is for North America as well, then Sony will have a two-week head start on Microsoft in the next-gen console wars.
A big stumbling block for Xbox One sales come Black Friday might be its price. Microsoft has already addressed the DRM and used game policies that gamers lambasted by removing all the restrictions. However, at $499 for the core console that does not include a pack-in game, Microsoft is expecting consumers to pony up well north of $500 once games and tax are taken into considering for an Xbox One. Sony has priced PS4 cheaper at $399 and has launch day guaranteed PS4 bundles for $460 and up, while Nintendo has the cheapest console on the block with Wii U at $349 and could potentially drop it another $50 ahead of the holiday shopping season.
For gamers and households that can only afford one next generation console this upcoming holiday season, Sony’s cheaper PS4 price combined with potentially a release date two weeks ahead of Xbox One definitely tips the advantage in Sony’s favor when it comes to next-gen console sales. That is assuming Microsoft doesn’t have another trick up its sleeve and intends on dropping a second Xbox One configuration sans a Kinect 2.0 camera.
