Microsoft’s Xbox One console will be launching at the end of the year in a total of 13 countries, but sadly for some, one of the new features of the Xbox One and its Kinect add-on will not be available in all countries from the off.
Microsoft has stated that the voice control features of the Xbox One will only be available in five countries from the launch. These countries are the US, UK, Canada, France and Germany and the information comes from the official Xbox One website;
“Xbox voice commands will not be available in all markets on the product release date. Voice commands will be available at launch in US, UK, CA, FR, and DE.”
Microsoft has in recent months found itself defending why the incoming Xbox One will always come with the Kinect 2.0 add-on and the news that one of the key features of the device won’t be working in all countries will surely annoy some early adopters.
The voice command feature has been touted by Microsoft as a big draw for the Xbox One, as gamers can just speak to their console to perform actions without having the Xbox One controller to hand. Gamers will be able to turn the device on or off just by saying ‘Xbox Off/On’ or load up specific features on the console with a simple voice command, for example.
We expect that the feature will be rolled out to the other 8 launch countries shortly after the console’s release but it is a bit of a blow for Xbox One fans in Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Brazil, Italy, Ireland, Mexico and Spain. It’s also odd to think that the UK, US and Canada will get the feature but other English speaking countries like Ireland, New Zealand and Australia will have to wait!
We hope MS can sort their voice command systems out soon for the missing launch countries as it does not bode well to build a feature into a console and then have it rendered useless to some users when the console arrives.