Brendan Sinclair North American Editor Wednesday 6th November 2013 Share this article Share

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As evidenced by the 40-foot console constructed in a Vancouver parking lot recently, Microsoft expects Xbox One to be big. Speaking with GamesIndustry International at the X13 showcase event in Toronto yesterday, Microsoft Canada's Xbox director of marketing Craig Flannagan put the November 22 launch into perspective.

"I've been here for the launch of Xbox 360. I was here for the launch of Kinect. This is far and away the biggest launch we've ever done," Flannagan said. "It's the most hardware we've ever produced. It's the most we've ever pre-sold. We're preselling a little over 2-to-1 from what we did with Xbox 360. The momentum on launch has been really good. And we didn't have a 40-foot console at the launch of the 360, either."

As for how Xbox One will fare against the PlayStation 4 and Wii U, Flannagan pointed to Xbox Live and the company's focus on social integration as two differentiating factors that will give it the edge. He also said he was proud of the game lineup, saying Xbox One exclusives walked out of E3 with twice the awards of both competitors.

"Xbox One is going to start ahead, in terms of the experience we can deliver," Flannagan said. "And because we're built for the future, we're going to stay ahead. I think there is not a better experience you can buy this holiday, and there will not be a time this generation where there's a better experience you can buy than Xbox One...And it's probably going to be a pretty long generation. We're probably here for a while because we're built for the future. This is a console that will last you, conservatively a decade, if I had to put a bet down today."

The idea of a launch Xbox One lasting a decade brings to mind the Red Ring of Death and Microsoft's notoriously unreliable Xbox 360 launch hardware. When asked if he's heard consumers expressing concerns about the Xbox One's durability, Flannagan said, "Not really."

"We feel great about where the hardware is at right now," Flanagan said. "Our yields are good. It's allowing us to produce more consoles than we ever have for a launch. We feel great about how the hardware is performing."

While Flannagan expects the hardware purchased this month to keep running years into the future, he doesn't expect it to offer the same experience. Just as the Xbox One went through multiple different dashboards and overhauled feature sets over the course of the last eight years, so too will the Xbox One evolve.

"Much like 360, Xbox One's not going to look a whole lot five years from now like it does on November 22, 2013. I don't know where it's going to go, but that's kind of fun because we're built for the future. We do have a connection; we can change what things look like and how it performs."