A promise made three years ago will be kept this summer.
The long awaited devkit feature on Xbox One will be released this summer alongside the Windows 10 Anniversary update. Programmers in the developer preview program can access the new feature known as Xbox Dev Mode today. “Now the Xbox isn’t just for playing, but also for creating awesome content. We’re excited to open the Xbox One to everyone so anyone can get started developing, said Chris Charla, Microsoft’s director of thr ID@Xbox program.
Xbox Dev Mode is free of charge but you will need to spend $19 to create a Dev Center account. If you are an amateur developer you may be better off just waiting for the full release this summer. The preview version only lets you use upmto 448 megabytes of RAM while the full version offers you 1GB of RAM.
With those kinds of limitations it is safe to say that you won’t be making any games like Ori and the Bkind Forest or Rocket League on Xbox One. For those kinds of games you will still need to join the ID@Xbox program. You will still have plenty tomwork with though. Games like Nutjitsu and Threes on Xbox One already run as apps and can be snapped to AAA games.
Microsoft has just enabled millions of potential developers to create and distribute apps for Xbox One. You won’t see the app store flooded with hastily developed games though. App for Xbox One still have to be submitted for approval and the developer has to agree to a standard contract before the game is made available to players.
