Xbox One TV Features Only Available In The US And Japan At Launch

After something of a turnaround from Microsoft in regard to their policies, it seemed as though the Xbox One was all set for a stable launch. There was a period of good news from the green side, with FIFA 14 being bundled in for pre-orders and Kinect not being required for the console to function.

Their triumphs wavered when it was announced that the voice commands would only launch in five countries at launch, and now it seems as though they aren’t ready to launch at all, since the all-important TV features which they focused so much on in the announcement will only be heading to two markets – North America and Japan.

This means everyone in the non-delayed European countries and here in the UK will have to wait until a currently unspecified time before they can use the TV functionality – those all-in-one mechanics that the name of the console is derived from.

“We talk a lot about TV and that’s only going to work basically in Japan and the U.S. at launch” said Albert Penello speaking to IGN, saying that even though it won’t be everywhere, they “still sell it as part of the vision.”

It’s not going to be us – it’s not the early adopters that this is a problem [for] – which is why we’re not prioritising solving it right off the bat, because the price of the consoles will have to come down like they do in every generation, the market will expand, we’ll eventually catch up to the people who are probably laggards in TV, and by that time we’ll have a more robust story than we have at launch

This is just not good enough for me, and feels like a poor excuse – they’re delaying it because people who buy the system at launch won’t want the TV features? Hardly all-in-One, is it?