   Jo Schmo American wants badly to make a game for X Box
  I want to make a game for X Box. Obviously I can''t, but why exactly? Does microsoft use special disks? Do they get their code from the keebler elves? If I wanted to, how would I go about it? Obviously someone is out there making these things, just not me, Joe of the land of schmo. I suspect a licensing deal where executives eat many donuts when moon is high and talk alot, then at the end the Microsoft Execs. hand them a sheet of paper that says. "Microsoft said I could make games now for the X Box" and they also get a book called "How Jo the Schmo learned to make games for the X Box by Bill Gates" and they flip it over and read the praises like, "Damn, I knew it was something like that." Is it like that? 
  You need the the specially licensed MS bootstrap code.If you hacked up your xbox and installed the X-box Linux, you could run linux games you coded for yourself. ;  Here''s the main obstacles:1. You need to know how to program for the XBOX. This entails not only knowledge of programming, but access to information about the API the XBOX uses, recreating tools necessary for XBOX development, reverse-engineering hardware information, figuring out the disc layout, etc., etc., etc. There are already amateurs working on this, but their work is by no means complete, or even particularly usable.2. Even if you did make a game, an XBOX will refuse to run it. Ya see, all commercially licensed XBOX games are "signed" by Microsoft. This signature is cryptographically generated, using encruption keys available only to Microsoft. Modchips exist to remove this limitation, but even then, only modded XBOXes would run your game.   "Sneftel is correct, if rather vulgar." --Flarelocke ;The official XBox development homepageYou''ll be hard pressed to get into their programs unless you''re established, though. They want references from publishers, previously released titles, and so on. If you''re *very* lucky (and recruited some famous veterans) then you could start a company with an XBox title, but the chances are slim in the extreme.Seriously, though, why do you want to? I can only think of two reasons:1) You just want to dabble with it - learn how XBox coding works, etc2) You want to make and sell an XBox game(if there''s a third option, please let me know  )If (1), then I recommend you learn to develop on a PC with DirectX. An XBox is pretty similar to a PC; that''s actually how most commercial developers would go about becoming officially licensed XBox developers, is developing a game prototype on PC and then using it to get into the XBox program.If (2), then you''ve gotta decide how much you enjoy being ''Joe the Schmo.'' XBox games take teams of around 40 developers (minimum) about 18 months to develop; you''re not going to be able to produce anything commercially viable by yourself. The alternative is that you raise some money, rent out studios, buy equipment, hire some staff, and visit my opening link to get yourself registered as a commercial developer. Congratulations, you''re a small business.There are other venues, I think - LinuXBoxes, for example. I don''t know anything about those, though, because the legality is questionable.   Richard "Superpig" Fine- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3 | Enginuity4 | Enginuity5ry. .ibu cy. .y''ybu. .abu ry. dy. "sy. .ubu py. .ebu ry. py. .ibu gy." fy. .ibu ny. .ebu"Don''t document your code; code your documentation." -me"I''m not a complete idiot; parts of me are missing." -}}i{{