Microsoft recently announced that now anyone can turn their Xbox One in to a dev kit and run Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps on it. This is very exciting news as it effectively makes Xbox One game development available to everyone! Construct 2 already has UWP app support, which we launched back in August for Windows 10. We've tested several games on the Xbox One and many work unmodified, complete with gamepad, WebGL and Web Audio support, powered by the latest Edge browser engine.
Therefore we are very happy to announce beta support for exporting to the Xbox One in Construct 2 r227. This is available to all existing licensed Construct 2 users at no extra cost - there is no need to purchase any additional exporters or modules! We believe most games should work smoothly right away, but we are aiming to get more extensive testing and feedback from users before we drop the "beta" label. So please give it a go and let us know how it works out!
How to try it out
The Universal Windows Platform is aimed at creating one app that will run on all of Microsoft's platforms, including on desktop, mobile and Xbox One. So there is no new "Xbox One" export option in Construct 2: just choose the existing Windows Store export option and be sure to select the Windows 10 Universal (VS2015) target version, just like you'd do for publishing a Windows 10 app. The resulting Visual Studio project can work on Xbox One as well! However there is some setting-up work that needs to be done before it can run on the Xbox One. For information on how to set up the right software (such as the required Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 and the Windows 10 SDK preview build) as well as how to activate Developer Mode on your Xbox One, see Microsoft's guide UWP on Xbox One.
Please take care to note Microsoft's warnings about using Developer Mode on your Xbox One. Currently it is pre-release software and could affect games and apps, and leaving developer mode requires a factory reset.
Once you have all the set-up described in Microsoft's guide done, there are just two settings that need changing in Visual Studio after exporting to allow your game to run on Xbox One. Click the dropdown arrow by the "Local Machine" run button, and select "Remote Machine", as shown below.
Now click the run button again (now saying "Remote Machine"). The first time you do this, Visual Studio will prompt you to enter a "remote machine name". Click "Yes" to open the settings. The two changes you need to make here are:
- For Machine Name, enter the IP address of the Xbox One, e.g. 10.20.30.40. The "dev home" section on the Xbox One will tell you this.
- Change Require Authentication to Universal (Unencrypted Protocol).
Press OK. Now you should be able to start your game on the Xbox One by clicking the "Remote Machine" run button again!
Publishing
Microsoft advise that if you want to publish your game to Xbox One, register for ID@Xbox. So if your testing is successful and you want to go further, click the link to find out more. Note this is a different process to publishing Windows 10 apps via the Windows Store.
HTML5 games on Xbox One
This is the second console that allows publishing HTML5 games, proving the capability of web technologies to produce console-grade games. Microsoft have also assured us that HTML5 games will be treated as a first-class platform on the Xbox One. This means they aim to allow equal access to all available features from Javascript, and certification will be based on game quality, not technology.
We are very excited to see what you will be able to do with this, and look forwards to seeing your results and hearing your feedback. Go ahead and start making games for Xbox One!