The Xbox Development Kit (XDK) is a

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific t ...

created by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

used to write software for the 2001

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

gaming system. The XDK includes

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

, a

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

, and various tools used to create software for the

. The XDK has the option to integrate itself into

Microsoft Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

. This is needed if one wants to develop applications or games for the

. The XDK also includes a tool to record in-game footage, which has been widely used to create high-quality screenshots and trailers.

Purpose

The XDK allows software creators to create, run and distribute applications on the Xbox platform. Xbox 360 XDKs were based on all three generations of the Xbox 360 Design ("Phat", "Slim" and "E"). There were XNA Kits, which were used at some expos and given to game studios, Stress Kits, which were used to test the power of the Xbox 360 and various conditions such as undervolting and overvolting and issued to Microsoft developers only, and Demo kits, which were used to demo games. Some but not all XDKs include a sidecar which was used to emulate the

DVD drive In computing, an optical disc drive (ODD) is a disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can onl ...

and act as a hard drive and on older XDKs with older recoveries, used for PIX Debugging. Bundled with XDKs is the Xbox 360 SDK used to connect to the console, enable memory editing, file management, and integrate to Visual Studio 2010 for

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

game development.

Xbox development environment

The Xbox

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...

is based on the NT 5.0 kernel, but does not have all of the resources or capabilities of the

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

operating system, (for example: neither

DirectShow DirectShow (sometimes abbreviated as DS or DShow), codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's ea ...

, registry, or DLL are natively supported on the Xbox). Because of the constraints on the hardware and environment of the Xbox, all software development for the Xbox (and all video game consoles systems in general) are focused on reserving the limited resources that exist, the main limitation of which is the amount of available

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

. *

Xbox embedded operating system

*The Xbox does not have an operating system per se, instead it only has a simple BIOS. **Everything else must go into the main executable and its (XDK and own-made)

. *Only a single

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management * Business process, activities that produce a specific s ...

(

executable In computer science, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), in ...

program) can run at a time on the Xbox. * Xbox hard drive file system (FATX) has many limitations, among them a maximum file name length of 42 characters. *The Xbox has four non-standard

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

ports but the Xbox SDK does not contain a full USB

stack Stack may refer to: Places * Stack Island, an island game reserve in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, in Tasmania’s Hunter Island Group * Blue Stack Mountains, in Co. Donegal, Ireland People * Stack (surname) (including a list of people ...

, thus to add support for USB hardware devices, the developer would have to code the entire USB stack from scratch.

XDK and Xbox specific software limitations

This is a list of XDK, Xbox hardware, and Xbox operating system specific limitations. * UDF (Universal Disk Format) file system limitation: The Xbox only supports UDF version 1.02 (designed for

DVD-Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2024, it competes with the high-definition Blu-ray Disc, while both rece ...

), which has a maximum file size of 1 GB (Gigabyte) (a DVD in a newer UDF version with a video that is larger than 1GB will not play), with the same applying to UDF/ISO hybrid formats (a.k.a. UDF Bridge format). A workaround is to burn discs in the

ISO 9660 ISO 9660 (also known as ECMA-119) is a file system for optical disc media. The file system is an international standard available from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Since the specification is publicly available, im ...

format. The ISO 9660 format has a 2 GB maximum file size, which cannot be bypassed. *The Xbox hard disk is formatted in FATX (File Allocation Table for Xbox) which has a 4 GB (4096

Megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes ...

) maximum file size, and only supports file/folder names up to 42 characters, a maximum of 255 character full path, and a maximum number of 4096 files/folders in a single folder, plus in the root of each partition, the maximum number of files/folders is 256. FATX also does not support all standard ASCII characters in file/folder names (for example < > = ? : ; " * +, / \, ¤ &). Review of XBMC in Hardcore Gamer Magazine *The

USB flash drive A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...

reader/writer

class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...

used by the Xbox operating system has a few limitations as well. It is limited to USB flash drives and

hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

s compatible with

USB Mass Storage Device Class The USB mass storage device class (also known as USB MSC or UMS) is a set of computing communications protocols, specifically a USB#Device_classes, USB Device Class, defined by the USB Implementers Forum that makes a USB device accessible to a h ...

following the USB 1.1 standard, with a maximum size of 4 GB. It can read and write to FATX formatted flash drives, but can only read FAT12, FAT16 (including VFAT), and FAT32.

NTFS NT File System (NTFS) (commonly called ''New Technology File System'') is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft in the 1990s. It was developed to overcome scalability, security and other limitations with File Allocation Tabl ...

formatted drives are not supported yet. *With its 733 MHz

Intel Pentium III The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile CPUs based on the sixth-generation P6 (microarchitecture), P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 28, 1999 ...

-like CPU and 64 MB shared memory, the Xbox has neither a fast enough CPU nor sufficient

to play

HDTV High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it ref ...

videos encoded in native 720p/1080i resolution. However, the Xbox can upscale all

standard definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...

movies and output them at 720p or 1080i.

References

{{Microsoft development tools Microsoft development tools Development Kit Software development kits

Purpose

Xbox development environment

Xbox embedded operating system

XDK and Xbox specific software limitations

See also

References