Xbox One will have pre-order bonuses in delayed launch countries

Xbox Europe boss Chris Lewis has told VG247 that Xbox One will carry pre-order bonuses in those European countries were the console's launch has been delayed into 2014.

Chris Lewis said he was "disappointed" about the delay, and he wants to ensure that Xbox fans in those countries won't be disappointed when they get their hands on the console.

"We want to bring optimised experiences wherever we launch, and that includes fully-localised dash, voice, all of the entertainment-out-of-the-box experience," he said. "All of that, in our view, has to be optimised at launch, and we felt that we weren’t able to bring all of that to all of those markets at launch, so that’s why we’ve narrowed down the launch country portfolio.

"We will add goodness to pre-orders, to those who’ve pre-ordered, in a good way, and we’ll talk more about that as time rolls on."

Last week it was confirmed that the Xbox One launch would be delayed in 8 European countries, including Russia, Denmark, and Belgium. As a result Xbox One games are now region-free, which means customers in these territories could import consoles if they wanted. However Lewis encourages players to wait.

"Xbox One will work everywhere and the games will work everywhere, but we’d encourage people to wait for that optimised experience and we’ll bring that to those markets as soon as we can."

You can read the full interview here.