Skip to main content

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X won’t release this Thanksgiving

For a moment, it seemed like Christmas was going to arrive a month early for gaming fans when Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Halo Infinite were announced for a Thanksgiving launch. It would have been an unprecedented move that potentially could have thrown Black Friday into chaos.

However, it appears the announcement was an error. Microsoft’s Xbox Series X website briefly claimed a Thanksgiving 2020 release date, but quickly changed back to Holiday 2020. Geoff Keighley, best known as host and organizer of The Game Awards, brought this to gamers’ attention.

For now, it appears the release date remains unknown.

UPDATE: Sources tell me the Xbox Series X release date is unchanged and still "Holiday 2020." There is no announcement today about a release date.

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) March 18, 2020

The Xbox Series X was first announced during E3 2019, and its final design was unveiled during The Game Awards in late 2019. It’s shaping up to be one of the most powerful game consoles ever created, with comparable specifications to the PlayStation 5 and the potential to surpass Sony’s GPU in terms of raw power.

Xbox Series X - World Premier - 4K trailer

The Xbox Series X began development in 2016 before the Xbox One X had launched. It was created with particular attention to developers’ and players’ feedback and aimed at pushing technical boundaries past expectations. It was also created to work seamlessly with the new Project xCloud streaming service, with certain games being cloud-native, meaning they will never rely solely on the console’s own hardware.

“It’s really about making sure players all across the world can have these same great gaming experiences,” Jason Ronald. partner director of program management for Xbox, said during Game Stack Live.

A feature called “stream awareness” allows games to recognize what device they are played on, allowing for more detailed user-interface details on an Xbox Series X compared to a mobile device. The console’s “dynamic latency input” also comes into play, with games recognizing actions coming from a controller versus a touchscreen and adjusting accordingly.

Xbox Series X will be backward-compatible with games on all previous Xbox consoles. Through its Smart Delivery program, players won’t have to buy some titles more than once to get the Series X version if they already purchased an Xbox One version. This includes Cyberpunk 2077, which will launch on Xbox One, PS4, Stadia, and PC just before the Xbox Series X arrives.

This is breaking news. This story will be updated as more information is available.

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
All upcoming Xbox Series X games: 2024, 2025, and beyond
Key art for Frostpunk 2.

The Xbox Series X and Series S have now been out for over four years, bringing better resolution, higher frame rates, and ray tracing to gamers around the world. And the upcoming Xbox Series X games on this list promise to continue to show off all those bells and whistles in fun, new experiences.

If you're eager to find out what Microsoft has in store for the years ahead, we've rounded up every game confirmed so far, including new offerings, franchise installments, and ports of existing titles. We're looking beyond the first-party projects here to encompass all the great games coming to this powerful piece of gaming hardware. Maybe some of them will end up being among the best games on Xbox Series X.
Upcoming Xbox Series X games 2024
The games listed below either have 100% confirmed release dates or solid release windows that we expect them to hit in 2024. Any games with more ambiguous release windows will be listed below the confirmed releases.

Read more
Upcoming Soulslike delayed indefinitely on Xbox due to ‘challenges’ with Microsoft
A character in Enotria: The Last Song. It's wearing a burnt masquerade mask, with green and red fabric attached.

Enotria: The Last Song, an upcoming Soulslike inspired by Italian mythology, was set to release on Xbox Series X/S alongside PlayStation 5 and PC on September 19. However, the developers announced on Monday that the Xbox version is being delayed indefinitely.

According to a statement on the game's website, a spokesperson from Jyamma Games wrote that the team "encountered challenges" when getting the version ready for launch. The post was more vague on the kinds of issues the team faced: "We understand how disappointing this news is to the Xbox community. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and the hard work of our dedicated team, we’ve encountered challenges that have delayed our release on the Xbox platform. We want to emphasize that this is not a decision we’ve made lightly," the post reads.

Read more
The best co-op games on Xbox Series X
Jack Sparrow and pirate from Sea of Thieves.

The Xbox Series X is home to superb games already, and there are plenty of upcoming games to be excited about too. As much as we all love competing in the best multiplayer games on Xbox Series X, sometimes you would rather team up with a friend than fight them. Co-op games let you and your friends turn the tables on the game itself to stack the odds in your favor. While local co-op has started to fade away, cross-platform games make it easier than ever to join up with friends online even if they're playing on a different console.

These are the best co-op games on Xbox Series X.

Read more