Shortly after the hands-on session for the preview build of Redfall, Microsoft whisked us away to its Sydney office to tell us a bit about its plans for the SEA region. While a lot of it involved sharing the success of the PC Game Pass in the region in conjunction with its upcoming first anniversary here, the company did make one important announcement. The company is looking to bring more of its Xbox products to the region.
We could not talk about it earlier because of the embargo associated with the news. But now that it’s lifted, I can tell you that Microsoft intends to start its expansion with Xbox accessories, and more specifically, the Xbox Wireless Controllers. And it is very specifically just the base model controller at that. Jeremy Hinton, the Asia Business Director at the company, tells us that none of the special edition colours that you’ve seen us report on before, nor the Xbox Elite controllers, will be making landfall during this initial wave.
Microsoft says that this will be the first time expansion in to the Malaysian, Philippine and Indonesian markets, with an expanded range for Thailand and Vietnam. Singapore, being the odd one out, was the only country in the region to have access to the full Xbox hardware catalogue.
All that being said, Microsoft has yet to share when that expansion is supposed to happen. Instead, the company tells us that reps will inform us as we get closer to said launch dates. Ditto any other products that may be coming our way; the company will only let us know when we get close to their planned dates, if any.
It’s still a long way away before anyone can get an Xbox console in Malaysia without going down south to Singapore, or importing from Hong Kong, for instance. But it’s as good a first step as any, and it’s also good to know that Microsoft is aware of the demand for more Xbox in the region beyond PC Game Pass.
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