Xbox360 dated! US: Nov 22, EU: Dec 2, Jap: Dec 11

Right off, the US launch date. The Xbox 360 will arrive Tuesday, November 22, just two days ahead of Thanksgiving. Surprisingly enough, the company's keeping on track with their worldwide roll out; the machine will hit Europe on December 2, Japan on December 11.



Microsoft's also announcing at the conference that right at this very moment, Xbox 360s are already in production to meet the worldwide demand during the holiday season. We still don't know what to expect in terms of launch numbers, but don't look for those specifics until closer to launch, maybe even at X05.

Flextronics International Ltd., Wistron Corp. and Celestica Inc. make the consoles, and production probably started in mid- August, Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles, said. He estimates Microsoft will have about 1.5 million units to sell when the Xbox is released in USA. He expected 500,000-700,000 consoles ready in Europe. He had no estimates for Japan.
"If they deliver fewer than 2 million in the U.S. and Europe combined, they will be sold out in two days," he said. "After that, they will be able to produce about 150,000 a week for the first few weeks, so they'll be sold out for a long time."



Seeing as how it's Tokyo Game Show, though, the company's focusing on their overseas efforts. In addition to confirming a launch price of 37,900 YEN (almost $345 USD) for Xbox 360, Microsoft's predictably avoiding a dual SKU launch in the land of the rising sun. Japan will receive one version of Xbox 360 loaded with the removable 20GB HD, wireless controller, an media remote control, an headset, an ethernet cable, batteries and a component HD-AV cable.