Only five countries will be able to fully talk to their Xbox Ones at launch

Microsoft’s Xbox One console will only support full voice commands in five launch countries. A large part of the Xbox One’s value proposition is that you’ll be able to use the new and improved Kinect to tell your console what to do. Don’t fumble with the controller like a caveman! Speak to your console and tell it what to do! “Xbox on!” Unfortunately, according to new information posted on the Get the Facts page for Xbox One, not all gamers can expect to do that at launch.

Xbox voice commands will not be available in all markets on the product release date. Voice commands will be available at launch in US, UK, CA, FR, and DE.

Albert Penello, Microsoft’s Director of Product Planning, tried to clarify the notice with a post on NeoGAF. Apparently, the notice only applies to full voice functionality. Out of the 13 launch territories, some voice commands will work in 10 of them, while only the five listed will be able to use all planned Kinect functionality.

“Turns out the answer to this question is…complicated. It’s been an education for me as I’ve been looking into it.”

“There is no way that I could do justice to it in a post, so the marketing team is working on a chart that gives clarity on what locales, languages, and voice features are available in each country. Trying to write it down would be confusing. Stay tuned for a more detailed explanation.”

The 13 launch territories are Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand.