It looks like some may have jumped the gun in thinking that Microsoft’s refrigerator-shaped next-gen console got a confirmed release date. The confusion started when a regional Microsoft website listed the Xbox Series X with a release date of Thanksgiving 2020. Multiple websites began reporting on the news.
Minutes later, however, Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb made it known on Twitter that the Xbox Series X will not be coming out on Thanksgiving. Or did he? The tweet in question had Hyrb stating “An Xbox product page in some regions inaccurately listed the launch date for Xbox Series X as Thanksgiving 2020. We are committed to launching Holiday 2020.”
An Xbox product page in some regions inaccurately listed the launch date for Xbox Series X as Thanksgiving 2020. We are committed to launching Holiday 2020
— Larry Hryb 💫✨ (@majornelson) March 18, 2020
The question many were asking in the replies to this tweet all echoed a similar sentiment. Is Thanksgiving not part of “Holiday 2020”? You can make the argument that Hryb kinda contradicted himself here. You could also make the argument that he didn’t. The fact is, Hryb doesn’t seem like he’s entirely ruling Thanksgiving out as the potential launch date since he used the extremely generic term “Holiday 2020.” That’s a really wide window that does, in fact, include Thanksgiving.
Maybe the website prematurely leaked the actual release and Hryb was simply conducting some damage control. Nobody knows.
If the Series X were coming out on Thanksgiving, however, it would mark the first time a Microsoft console came out on the holiday. All previous Microsoft consoles launched prior to that day, including the half-step Xbox One X console, which released on November 7, 2017. The closest a Microsoft console came to launching on Thanksgiving was the Xbox 360, which launched on November 22, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving all the way back in 2005.
Obviously, time will eventually tell exactly when Microsoft’s shiny new console will launch, but it’s probably safe to assume that it would be before Black Friday. All we can do now is speculate.
