Microsoft has announced in a blog post detailing new Dev Center capabilities that developers can now submit their Universal Windows Platform apps to the Xbox One. This is a long awaited feature which many fans are excited for.
The new and updated Dev Center capabilities include:
• Submit apps and games to Xbox One
• Reduce the risk of a new app release with gradual package rollout
• Communicate optional and required hardware preferences
• Ensure customers have an ideal experience with your app or game through mandatory updates
• Simplify cross-device development with Store–managed consumables
• Streamline app management with the Submission API and simplified device family targeting
• Enhance your business analysis through improved reports: lifetime add-on acquisitions, an enhanced Feedback report and the new Real time report
• Work faster in Dev Center using the new dashboard view
Developers can offer their apps built using the latest SDK build to Xbox One by going to the device family availability section of the Packages page of their submission and choosing “Windows 10 Xbox.” It should be noted that this will not work if you want to submit a game, as games require concept approval and it is best to join the ID@Xbox Program if you wish to publish a game on Xbox One.
For anyone looking to offer a package update to a percentage of their customers, Dev Center now supports gradual package rollout. Developers can increase the percentage until they are confident that it can be rolled out to everyone, in which case it can be finalized or halted if their are any issues present in the update. Dev Center also now supports mandatory updates which a developer can enable to ensure that customers have the latest version of the game before they start to play. This is a feature frequently used in online multiplayer games.
Many of the new and updated capabilities that are meant to streamline and simplify Dev Center for UWP developers range from a currency table that allows a developer to view all currencies and prices across the market to a store-managed consumables add-on, which helps minimize the amount of tracking and coding a developer has to do to know how many consumables are available to the user.
Microsoft encourages those who use the new capabilities to give their feedback through the “Feedback” button in Dev Center.
Source: Windows Blog
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.