Did you know...

I was talking to a developer friend of mine yesterday. This guy works as a programmer at a console games development company. They do work for the Xbox and PS2. Did you know that the Xbox runs on .NET? Supposedly the Xbox SDK requires you to have Visual Studio .NET 2002 and develop in Managed C++. I had no idea. I wonder how tough it would be for developers to write their own games for the Xbox. The only problem is, the code has to be digitally signed. Unfortunately for us, Verisign only accepts an arm or a leg for payments.

Personally, I think Microsoft should open up Xbox development to more people. Hey, you never know.... maybe someone will figure out how to set up a P2P online music jokebox system that you can pay for and not worry about licensing fees or the RIAA.

In related news, sourceforge.net is completely offline (I don't think it's my computer since I can browse the rest of the net)

4 Comments

  • I can hit sourceforge.net (via the link above) with no problems.



    -Scott

  • I've heard this before too. I don't know where. I know in the slide decks that I used as Student Consultant the XBOX picture was shown under ".NET devices"...



    I agree with your comment about opening up the SDK too. I tried getting the SDK for my User Group back at Stony Brook for research purposes, but there are some relaly strict licensing terms on it. I think it has more to do with NVidia than Microsoft though. They may not want the inner workings of the chipset revealed to too many people.

  • How is Verisign involved in digitally signing the code? I thought Microsoft did the signing.



    There are at least a couple of hacks to allow running un-signed code on tweaked consoles. Some involve some hardware modifications, while some others just involve memory cartridges with specific data.



    It'd definitely be nice to see the consoles out there be more open (and not only the X-Box). Applications like the Xbox Media Player show the potential for allowing "unlicensed" developers on the platform.

  • Usually when you talk about Microsoft and "signing" it involves a VeriSign Certificate in some way. I don't know if it's true in this case, but <shrugs> it's probably a pretty safe assumption.

Comments have been disabled for this content.