Every Xbox One really CAN be a dev kit
UPDATE: Microsoft: "We strongly advise consumers against changing these settings."
UPDATE: Microsoft has issued the following statement to Eurogamer advising players not to do everything they see on YouTube, especially if it involves mucking about in your Xbox One's super secret Developer Settings menu.
"Changing the settings in this menu is only intended for developers for Xbox One, and this alone does not turn the console into a development kit. We strongly advise consumers against changing these settings as it could result in their Xbox One becoming unusable. Customers who have put their consoles into this developer setting can revert by restoring factory defaults under Settings / System, select Restore Factory Defaults."
ORIGINAL STORY: Earlier this summer when Microsoft announced that the Xbox One would allow self-publishing, it also boasted the enticing claim that "every Xbox One can be used for development." The platform launched a couple weeks back and there was nary a word about this feature, but YouTuber GameTuts has discovered the secret code to unlock the mythical Developer Settings menu on a retail Xbox One.
Now, before you get all excited, know that Microsoft is warning people against doing this as it could mess up your console if you've not been explicitly given permission to access this by Microsoft in the form of a sandbox ID. "Please don't mess with anything here for the time being, especially the sandbox ID," an Xbox One developer warned in a Reddit thread about this very issue. "You risk putting your box into a boot loop."
"He speaks DA Truf," added another Redditer from Epic Games.
The Xbox One dev, simply codenamed XboxOneDev, noted that they weren't sure how far Microsoft was in implementing its ID@Xbox program that would unlock development options to the masses. "There are many concerns such as privacy, security, stability etc.., that need to be sorted out before we can allow anyone and everyone to simply sideload an app onto their box."
We've asked Microsoft for comment on how this program's coming along. While it may not be ready yet, the fact that even retail machines are capable of becoming dev kits is an exciting prospect for what the community could do with Microsoft's latest black box.
