[MadQB]

Hi all, I'm back (again). This time I have an announcement to make, as well as some questions to ask.

First of all, the questions:

Just wondering, does anyone on this forum have a modded XBox that can play homebrew games? Or, does anyone have any way to play homebrew xbox games at all?

The reason I ask is because a friend and I are going to start working on a console style rpg for the xbox, and once we get it into a playable state, we will need people to try it out and test it for us. Development is at a very early stage right now (mostly just planning and simple coding), but I hope, by the end of next week to have a decent tileset done and the Basic engine.

So, whats the scoop? Any takers? Once we get some screenies and such, I will make a project in the project section. Plus I will put up the story and all that good stuff, seeing how my buddy is the creative one of the two of us and he is away for the day.
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yep...

[Fooolking]

Developers have a special version of the console that they are developing for, they are very hush hush. I don't know if even modified X-boxs can load games in the making.
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Never milk cows that have uni-brows.

[omega_alpha]

Umm...have you explored XBox emulation at all? There's not only an OpenXDK , but an XBox emulator called CXBX which chances are, unless you're utilizing very advanced XDK and 3D features, will be able to run your game.

[MadQB]

Modified xbox's can run in-dev code with either tweaking of the bios or code. Or, if you use OpenXDK no modification at all (aside from mod chip and standard bioses for that). But the main ways to use in-dev code, are: 1. to load a debug bios into the box, or to use an .xbe patcher that patches a debug compiled executable so it will run on a retail xbox(modded of course). Of course I can't point out any of these resources because they are not supposed to be for the general public. But if anyone here was already into the xbox modding scene, they would surely know how to run unsigned programs, and i would be interested to see what I can do on an actual console. Also, has anyone else done any xbox coding? Just curious. Plus as Fooolking has pointed out, there are plenty of xbox emulators out there that will more than gladly run debug signed code.
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yep...

[omega_alpha]

I suppose it all depends on how wide of an audience you want your game available to.

[Adam]

[MadQB]

[PhyrFox]

You can alternatively purchase a compiler from Microsoft or a third party that can produce actual "production-ready" code. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure where one would find these compilers, but I do know that the Microsoft compiler can convert a game written in DirectX to XBox-platform in a few hours flat (you need to just barely tweak the source a bit). Games that have been developed, such as Halo (for example) that already have a Win9x version can be easily compiled for usage on an XBox. That was one of Microsoft's strong selling points.

Then again, since we are generally all hobbists here, I can't recommend an offical compiler anyway, since they tend to run thousands of dollars (CodeWarrior for the PS2 sold for $3000, last time I checked). But if you were serious about actually selling an XBox game (legally), the compiler comes with a licence to sell your code as well (that is, you would be "licenced by Microsoft").

Other than that, I'd recommend the emulation scene as a viable alternate, at least until you were ready to go sell your game, in which case a little capital would go for a lot of profit (assuming the game was successful, of course).

~= PhyrFox =~

[bay]

[PhyrFox]

Looks like I proved myself wrong. Microsoft is "handing" out XBox development kits. Or so it first appears. Appearantly, you need to be an "established game developer," which likely means that if you aren't a major company, or if your ideals don't match up with what Microsoft wants to see on their system, you'll need to find a third-party choice or bow to their wishes. Here's a (rather useless) link that they've supplied on the XBox website. I'd ask myself, but I don't have any use to develop on an XBox at this point, but here ya go:

XBox.com :: XBox Registered Developer Program

~= PhyrFox =~