Xbox Development Kit


The Xbox Development Kit is a software development kit created by Microsoft used to write software for the Xbox gaming system. The XDK includes libraries, a compiler, and various tools used to create software for the Xbox. The XDK has the option to integrate itself into Microsoft Visual Studio 2002 or 2003. This is needed if one wants to develop applications or games for the Xbox. 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 XDK's were issues in XDK's, XNA Kits, Stress Kits, and Demo kits All Devkits include a sidecar which was used to emulate the DVD drive and act as a hard drive. Bundled with XDK's is a windows application called Xbox Neighborhood used to connect to your console, enable memory editing, and integrate to Visual Studio 2010 for Xbox 360 XeX game development.

Xbox development environment

The Xbox BIOS is based on the NT 5.0 kernel, but does not have all of the resources or capabilities of the Windows 2000 operating system,. Because of the constraints on the hardware and environment of the Xbox, all software development for the Xbox are focused on reserving the limited resources that exist, the main limitation of which is the amount of available RAM.

Compiling games and applications for the Xbox

This is a list of XDK, Xbox hardware, and Xbox operating system specific limitations.