Calgary Microsoft Store at Chinook Mall

Opening soon, or well tomorrow is a Microsoft Store in Calgary which will be located in Chinook Mall. This is rather exciting as it's the fifth store of its kind to open in Canada and will have the latest technology from Microsoft in one convenient place. There will also be a number of future events, happenings and gatherings that will take place there starting from the grand opening tomorrow taking place at 10:30 am on August 14th, 2014 for all those future readers.

They will have a bunch of tickets to give away for The Band Perry concert they have setup for this Friday the 15th. The first 200 will have one ticket that's a meet and greet with the other gaining access to the event only. From there another 2000 ticket packs will be available so don't miss out on the opportunity. Aside from that there will be a number of great deals and giveaways in store along with a great bundle sale for Xbox 360.

I think that basically captures the main block of what's going on, if you continue further I have pictures and information about the awesome tour I took of the shop before it opened. Don't worry, the other ones are of a higher quality than below, just thought it would open the article nicely.

Once arriving I was greeted quite well and the venture began though I must say it was much more exciting this time around compared to my Edmonton trip previous (read here). Not to be meh about it, but I had an absolute great time viewing the Chinook store.

Friendly faces were all around and they had great excitement when showing me the various offerings that are going to be available at the store. From the whole range of core products like Xbox's; Windows 8.1 PCs, Surface Lines (Surface 3 Forever!) and Windows 8 Phones to more obscure offerings like a neat 3D Printer because well why not? At this point I'll split the writing chunks with more images to chain a story together.

When you first enter the store you will clearly see this Xbox One display, encouraging you to check out the many offerings the console has. Now this isn't the only area to play Xbox as the back as three more stations to try out games and play them while visiting. This one though is unique as it shows the complete offering from the Kinect display to the Surface with Glass feature.

The Surfare 3 display would be the next thing you would see in the middle with the Laptop replacing Tablet. Personally I feel that Tablets will begin to make Laptops phase out in the near future as the statistics clearly point to. I myself have the first generation Pro and find them a fantastic light alternative with this 3rd iteration being far more powerful.

Will also add to this block that they have a great Windows 8 Phone selection area beside the Xbox One display area that's got a wide range. Was even lucky to be shown a more full and robust version of Cortana there as we discussed that on the side for a bit. Felt honoured to some degree as Cortana (the AI that only gets smarter as you use her) is something I've been following for awhile as I'm such a huge Halo fan.

Guess I should also mention all the PC's available which are at a majority all touch screen running the pure Windows 8.1 OS with no extra bloatware. They also offer to fix malware or computer issues if you're having them for free if they can, it's a great service to make sure your PC keeps running.

Now we get into the gaming area which sports three play stations and all the top Xbox games for both Xbox One along with Xbox 360. To the side of it I will mention there is also a massive display screen to show off demos for people and other event oriented uses. Anyways, as you can see there are full games to check out on their consoles where the gameplay shows on the large side screens that line the entire store.

It really does add that futuristic feeling to the store having it look all tech modern. In the future there are going to be midnight launches which are exciting as many stores here don't do anything special for them. Also got the chance to play some games against the store leader Russell Shaw which was very friendly as he was the main guide throughout my tour. We also played a match of UFC against one another where to my dismay I was brutally knocked out despite landing many great blood filled punches, was a lot of fun and really unexpected.

The VP, which I hope I'm correct on that after looking it up on the internet to properly display it was also incredibly friendly in showing Cortana off and being around to talk with in the gaming area. Ever grateful for that and feel bad that I think I went over my allotted time while talking to them with the PR staff waiting. So some photos now and then a final block.

This is my wrap up of the entire tour which I wrote a great amount about as that's the point of this entire article, to show off what they're doing there. From great community things to offering fantastic future community events. It's the place to go in Calgary for anything Microsoft.

Also would like to thank the PR individuals for taking time for me while I was there and look forward to attending the ribbon cutting tomorrow which I will cover as well. Oh and finally here are shots of the 3D Printer, I love these things so much. It's a huge aspect of future technology as I got shown some items it has made.