Starting Today, Anyone Can Turn Their Xbox One Into A Dev Kit For Free

Microsoft today made good on a nearly three-year-old promise, unlocking the ability for all retail Xbox One consoles to become development kits free of charge.

[Overload]

"The preview only offers access to 448 MB of the Xbox One's 8 GB of RAM. When Dev Mode comes out of preview, Charla said, developers will have access to the full 1 GB of RAM supported for UWP Xbox games."

That will limit the types of experiences that this will offer.

[ScorpiusX]

Still a start with the possibility of growth , can't just open the flood gate. beside it maybe a test trial at first.

[4Sh0w]

Yeah Overload it only makes sense to limit the memory usage for something initially aimed at development/creation of UNIVERSAL games & applications. We aren't talking about a dev environment for AAA games= AAA devs obviously have the fully capable dev kits where the sky is the limit. Plus again these games and applications should work on Windows 10 computers, Xbox One, all the way down to a cell phones so this NEW FEATURE is perfect for that.

The thing is this is GREAT NEWS for all of us "wanta be game devs", this is exciting and a HUGE first for a home console but its not surprising you show up to the party to scream at everyone for having fun.

[Rookie_Monster]

It gotta start somewhere. MS started external storage on a memory stick for X360 at 16gb, now, it is expanded to 16tb on XB1. Also, there was a limit on cloud storage to unlimited for every account now. Finally, XB1 GwG games increased from 2 per month to now 4 with BC.

No doubt this Ram limit will increase with updates in the future as MS track records have proven time and time it will be the case. Heck, it is better to have than not have.

[DarXyde]

Even so, you can make a Souls game with half of that. Last generation hardware proves as much.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Is any dev mode option available on Ps4? BTW why go through the trouble of repeating the same comment over again? What's your agenda.?

[christocolus]

@Overload

Well the Xbox 360 had just 512mb of ram and yet we had awesome AAA experiences like Mass Effect, Crackdown, Lost Odyseey, Blue Dragon, FFXII1, Gears of War, Alan Wake, Witcher 2, Halo 4, Kameo, GTA IV, PGR, Forza, SFIV, Read Dead Redemption etc MS even got Original Xbox titles to run on the 360...So 448MB shouldn't be a problem at all. It's a good start.

[Rookie_Monster]

Plus this is for small indies developers and amateur game development enthusiasts so the small size limit fits its purpose as remember, they are not JUST developing apps and games for XB1, but it is Windows 10 universal apps and games that will work on other Windows 10 devices too.

It is funny how Overload repeated and copy n pasted the same concern on multiple articles about this exciting news. It is like he has nightmare that this will become a huge selling feature on a console or something. LoL

[ShadowKnight]

"It is funny how Overload repeated and copy n pasted the same concern on multiple articles about this exciting news. It is like he has nightmare that this will become a huge selling feature on a console or something. LoL"

What's also funny is that Sony and Microsoft keeps copying each other. Microsoft talked about having an upgraded console first and look what happen, we hear about Sony working on the PS4.5. Lol when Microsoft adds new features Sony and probably Nintendo is not too far behind announcing the same features LMAO. I'm calling it out now PS4.5 will have these features lol. Keep up the good work Microsoft because Sony and Nintendo is just watching everything your doing so they can add the same features later on this is great for all gamer's. History repeats itself every console generation.

[Overload]

"It is like he has nightmare that this will become a huge selling feature on a console or something."

Not this again.

[ShadowKnight]

Calling it out now Microsoft will announce it's VR headset in 2017. Just took the Delorean back to the future to check it out :)

[Eonjay]

Actually it looks like this is part of the Windows Universal App program. So like it can work on Xbox, tablet, or mobile phone and obviously windows 10 PC.

Now, if the game is universal and can run on a phone, you have to make sure that your app has isn't using too much memory so that it is still compatible with the mobile devices. So, its most likely a result of be universal.

[ScorpiusX]

WOW , love in what MS is doing and good for those that will use this feature .

[ninsigma]

So they actually did it. Nice. Pretty cool feature, might mess around with it for a bit and see what it's like. Never developed for anything other than pc so it'll be interesting to see what it's like.

[NotoriousWhiz]

Nice, I think I'm going to make salt and sanctuary for the X1. But I'll have to call it "Pepper and Holy Places"