That is not true about developer info. You can email MS for exact specs on developing for XBox. They actually recommend you develop on a PC using their FREE SDK (you just have to request it).

Jim Adams

Xbox uses DX8 doesn''t it? That''s what I remember reading anyways.

--Lowell N. Manners
lowell@makevideogames.com
MakeVideoGames.com

quote:your telling me MS will let me make games for xbox free of charge? kick ass!

Not quite. You can get some extra information about the console, and you can use the already freely available DirectX 8 SDK to make a prototype for a game.

If you can persuade an Xbox approved publisher to publish your game based on the prototype, then it will be released and available on final hardware.

You cannot release your own game which will run on retail Xbox hardware without going through an approved publisher.
The prototype programme doesn''t give you the Xbox specific versions of the DirectX or Windows SDKs or the platform specific documentation - its intention is solely that you make a game running on a PC to show what you want to take to Xbox.

Xbox isn''t a PC, it doesn''t run PC .exe''s and doesn''t contain a standard version of Windows or DirectX. DX 8 is quite similar to what is on the Xbox but some things have changed (look at the SDK and think what things you wouldn''t need on a pure games console) and some other new ways of doing things are possible (no multiple platform compatibility worries and new hardware means more direct access). Learning DX8 is a good starting point for coding Xbox games.



--
Simon O''''Connor
Creative Asylum Ltd
www.creative-asylum.com