Xbox 360 API

[Fevian]

I was thinking about all the stuff on APIs for different platforms, and I thought something, and I knew you guys would know the answer. It might seem like a dumb question, because Microsoft is "evil", but I wonder if it's possible to not use XNA/DirectX for Xbox 360 programming. I mean, OpenGL and SDL are cross-platform. If it was possible, could a program written using SDL or OGL run on an X360?

[Clayton]

JFGI

[rdrake]

The only way Microsoft will let you touch the Xbox 360 "legally" is with XNA and a $99/year subscription fee. As far as I know the 360 only supports DirectX and absolutely no OpenGL or SDL.

[Tony]

rdrake @ Sun Aug 26, 2007 8:41 pm wrote:

The only way Microsoft will let you touch the Xbox 360 "legally" is with XNA and a $99/year subscription fee.

rdrake is absolutely right. You need a subscription to the xna creators club to put anything on the Xbox 360. Part of the reasoning is that Microsoft needs to sign your game with an authentication key to run on a 360 (all part of the managed software and stuff like that). There is a way around that, kind of, and that is to get a development version of Xbox 360. Those are unlocked, will run any "unsafe" code you throw at it, but are crazy expensive and are available to licensed game studios only.

[octopi]

All code that runs on 360's is encrypted using RSA, Microsoft holds the private key for this, so basically only they can make it so programs will run. XNA programs run inside a type of emulator as far as I know, this was all done to prevent people from hacking it. (like running a custom dashboard etc...)

[rdrake]

If you really want to program for something for free, consider picking up an old Xbox and mod said Xbox to run homebrew code. There exists a free, legal, and open source SDK called the OpenXDK which you can use to build games and whatever else for the Xbox.

[Fevian]

Hmmm. I knew about the XNA Creator's Club crap and about the security/licensing. I was just wondering if other things beside XNA/DirectX were possible. This pretty answers my question though. Personally, X360 prgoramming seems like something worthwhile, because it is, in my opinion, the best next-gen system. After playing Bioshock, it's something I would like to do as a hobby, even if there is a $99/year fee. The only problem with programming for the old Xbox is that it doesn't support nearly the same level of quality as the 360. But what can you do. I guess I'll just stick to learning C++ with SDL and OGL. Thanks, guys.

[Nick]

hey i never really got into xbox (although i liked it's games same with the 360) however i was wondering if you could upload applications onto either the old xbox or the 360 and play them (example an emulator [snes,nes,gba,n64,etc...] or a game i persoanlly programmed) i think what this is what Fevian is asking but it seems like he's asking more if you could mod the 360 to play other platform's games like a ps2 or something

[Fevian]

Of course if your Xbox is modded, and the program is able to be run on that platform (does regular, old Xbox run only DirectX for that matter?), you can FTP it over. But I guess since, modding an Xbox is installing a Linux OS on it, it'll run a lot of different programs. I suppose you could run an emulator on a modded box if you wanted to. This has nothing to do what I was asking though. I was more asking about the development options for someone who would consider legally getting a Creator's Club Membership. I don't really care about having a system emulate another...Especially since it'd be trouble and questionable legality. I have a PS2 to play PS2 games. I don't need another system to do that.

[Fevian]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free60

Hmmm. Just saw this. Seems possible, and perhaps with the OS change (or just having both OS on the harddrive), you'll be able to make homebrew non-XNA games. Heres, hoping.