Anyone can turn their Xbox One into a software dev kit

The dream of turning your Xbox One into a software development kit is finally real. Phil Spencer announced today during the Build keynote that it’ll be pretty simple too. Essentially, download the Xbox Dev Mode app, register as a developer and that’s about it. From there you can swap back and forth between a retail game, Microsoft’s Ashley Speicher was playing Forza Motorsport 6, and whatever app you’re working on be it a game or otherwise.

Speicher demoed a photo editing app where she was able to add a chat bubble and text to an adorable image of a thick-maned dog, simply using her voice and Kinect; it looked way easier than trying to use an onscreen keyboard. But given how temperamental Kinect is for voice recognition, how well that’ll fare in the wild could be an absolutely different story.

Bringing the developer kit to Xbox One “isn’t just a hobby, it’s a commitment to empower every developer on the planet,” Spencer said. There’s a preview version available starting today, but Microsoft’s indie-developer-minded (who this update will benefit the most) Chris Charla told Polygon that you might run into some issues if you’re playing around with it right now.

Spencer also mentioned that the Windows Store and Xbox Store will merge bringing things like season passes together with Cortana running on Xbox One. Oh, and playing music in the background will be a part of the Xbox One after the anniversary update as well. Further than that, Microsoft has developed tools that can turn old games like Age of Empires 2 HD into cross-platform apps. Hey, alright!

The future Spencer hinted at previously, about forward compatibility and backward compatibility being a focus for Windows 10 gaming is actually coming to pass. Of course, how this all will work outside of the controlled environment demonstrated onstage today is another matter entirely. Given how simple things like Xbox game streaming to Windows 10 PCs works, though, there might not be much of a reason for concern.

Get all the news from today’s Microsoft Build keynote right here, and follow along with our liveblog!