Speaking with Polygon, Xbox head Phil Spencer discussed the chance that Xbox One retail units will eventually be turned into dev kits.
“I cannot update on that front right now, but I think the idea that you’re talking about is a perfect example of … way back in the day, third-party publishers paid thousands of dollars for console dev kits,” Spencer said. “That clearly kept you and I from starting a game company, because it would soak up most of our money just buying the dev kits.
“Then, indies were embraced — Sony did a great job, I’m not saying we were unique on this — we had our ID@Xbox program where, when you’re accepted, we sent you two dev kits. Which was a way to say: ‘Go start building games!'”
Spencer acknowledged dev kits can be expensive. The HoloLens, for example, has a dev kit that comes with a $3,000 USD price tag.
“We don’t want the price of the hardware to be a barrier. And you can distribute them digitally so you don’t even have to deal with all the retail stuff and make that work,” he said. “The idea that you and I might just want to riff on something on our own at home and see if we can create something very very easily even before we submit to ID — that makes a lot of sense to me.”
The functionality was promised ahead of the Xbox One’s initial release.
We’ll have more on this as it develops.
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