Microsoft's Xbox One To Be Released on Nov. 22

Sept. 4, 2013— -- Xbox One, Microsoft's newest video game console, will be available in stores on Nov. 22. The Xbox One will cost $499.99 and is available for pre-order at the Microsoft store and other retailers.

Yusuf Mehdi, the Vice President of Marketing, Strategy, and Business for Xbox, wrote a post on Xbox's blog Wednesday making the announcement. In addition to the release date, Mehdi added that the Xbox One CPU's processing power will be increased to 1.75 GHz, a 10 percent increase from its original specs.

The CPU speed of the Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft's chief rival in the latest iteration of the console wars, has not yet been specified. However, there have been rumors that it could be upwards to about 2.75 GHz, though that has not been confirmed by Sony itself.

Many video gamers felt betrayed by Microsoft, given that the Xbox One seems to be more of a media center to watch TV and movies than it is to play games. Microsoft itself came under fire when they dodged questions around playing second-hand games and daily Internet check-ins.

While Microsoft has since reversed those decisions, it still costs more than the PlayStation 4 by $100. However, the $500 price tag includes a Kinect motion tracking setup while the PlayStation 4's camera is sold separately from the system.

The Xbox One has been seen largely as an attempt to get more people interested in the console at the expense of being seen primarily as a gaming machine. Mehdi said he wants to try and make amends for that. "We built Xbox One to bring you the best games," he wrote. "And November 22 is a special day in Xbox history -- on this day, we first launched Xbox 360 in 2005."