title: Tools & Environment for Professional Xbox 360 development?
body: <p>just a general query. I've tried to research the tools and environment used for professional 360 development but there's not much available that isn't covered by NDAs.</p>
  
  <p>(Please note that I'm not interested in XNA development.)</p>
  
  <p>Q. What is the preferred/most-common dev environment for PRO development?  Is it Visual Studio 2010?  Or does the SDK provide a specific IDE and compiler/linker/build chain for the 360?</p>
  
  <p>Q. What are the core frameworks provided through the SDK?  A custom version of DX9 for example?  What else? Does the SDK or licensing provide access to commonly-used middleware for major components?</p>
  
  <p>Q. Is OpenGL supported at any level on the 360 or would all code have to be ported to a DX version?</p>
  
  <p>Q. In terms of tools (not technology) what are the main differences in developing a game for the 360, and, say, Windows?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for any help.</p>