It was made clear earlier this year that every Xbox One would have the capability of becoming a development kit, making it easier for aspiring hobbyists to create for the platform without having to fork out the cash for dedicated hardware. What you might not know is that this functionality doesn’t need to be patched in — you can activate it right now, if you’re willing to risk stuffing up your console.
As Reddit user “LiamHing” found out, all one has to do is enter the following combination of buttons while viewing the “System” menu:
Left bumper, right bumper, left trigger, right trigger
After which a new menu option will appear called “Developer”.
However, an Xbox One developer weighed in on the conversation to warn users of turning this feature on willy-nilly, as entering incorrect information in the “Sandbox ID” field (visible in the picture above) can put your console into a “boot loop”.
This is not a good thing.
The developer also mentioned that issues like “privacy, security [and] stability” would need to be resolved before “anyone and everyone [can] sideload an app onto their box”.
So what can you do for now? Well, that depends on how brave you’re feeling. If you do decide to go ahead and fiddle with the developer settings, please don’t blame us if your console explodes or does something else terribly terrible.
All Xbox Ones are Dev Kits! [Reddit]
Image: LiamHing
Comments
38 responses to “You Probably Shouldn’t Use This Button Combo To Turn Your Xbox One Into A Dev Kit”
Remarkably simple code. I hope it turns out to be something fun and useful, for people who understand how it works. Hopefully not many people will do stupid things and brick their consoles. 😛
Boot loop sounds a lot like fruit loop. Just sayin’.
Boot loop has 8 letters, 8 divided by 2 minus 1 is 3.
3, plus boot, Gordon freeman wore boots. That’s a Half Life reference combined with the number 3 … just sayin
Just stop with this shit already.
Oh, hello there Sgt Dickens of the fun police. Shouldn’t you be out there arresting real criminals? I heard there’s a clown making balloon animals for kids down the road, quick, get down there and shut that down right away.
“Sgt Dickens of the fun police”. Lol why do I find this hilarious.
File photo
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AMIDyplyWDA/T_CAS-Lo9ZI/AAAAAAAAE1I/w8aMFACTpnU/s400/busted%2Bclown.jpg
LOL!
Actually, its Sgt. Dickens of the Humour Enforcement Patrol, I am arresting you for the fact that you have blatantly attempted, (and failed), to use humour from a context that wasn’t even funny when the first person did it. I am recommending life with no possibility of parole, as you are likely to re-offend and have shown no remorse for your actions.
I suppose I should reveal that I’m Chief Justice Longrod of the Federal Court of Humour reminding you that according to section 3, article A of the Constitution of Humour (AKA Know Your Meme) that the proper context for the use of Half Life 3 Confirmed meme is a grey area at best and thus may be applied broadly and in breadth of context Ref. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/half-life-3-confirmed
I declare this a miss-trial and order the accused to recieve a full pardon. I do realise that it is extremely unorthadox for the defendant to preside over his own case but eh, what are you gonna do.
PS. Well played ; )
So, who wants to guess how long before the functionality is patched out once people find a way to use Dev mode to play pirated games?
It’s an x86 CPU running a modified version of windows, I don’t think it will be long until someone figures out how to install steam!
I’m pretty sure it will be out patched before then.
Isn’t the plan to patch it in? I mean this isn’t an unintended feature it’s just an undocumented feature.
The public having easy access to the dev mode, which they can brick their consoles with. I think Microsoft will get rid of that soon. The easy access that is, I’m sure there will be a new secret method of access for authorised devs.
Just with it being so close to launch, I suspect this was a shortcut that was there for devs and was meant to be removed before it shipped.
But it’s not for authorised devs.
Self-publishing —> download .ISO + mount + play
Considering this button combination is something I do while thinking about what game i’m going to play, M$ could have been smart about it and put it in the settings menu with a warning instead of making it something 1000s are going to enter by accident.
This was my thoughts exactly, 4 buttons and in such a manner is hardly a code. The controller could even fall on the floor and hit every one of those in order. sure its not likely to happen but the very possibility says that code needs changing.
The only way the controller could “fall on the floor and hit the buttons in that order” is if you had a convex floor, preferably made of rubber, narrow and tilted at acute incline – and was on a boat, aeroplane or helicopter – during particularly heavy turbulence/storm. And even then you might have to throw it a bit to get the peggle like trigger – opposite trigger – opposite bumper – opposite bumper ultra combo.
Really you felt compelled to dispute the POSSIBILITY that 4 buttons would get hit in a row? seriously?
I could reiterate, you could drop the controller, it lands on the edge of the couch/coffe table/remote and hits the bumpers first then it rolls/falls/bounces ricochet off of said edge then lands on one trigger evening out to hit the other, bam
This is ENTIRELY possible, given already 1 + million consoles sold and I would assume each person will drop that controller at least once in the next few weeks if they haven’t already. some house many many more times. your already looking at millions of drops and you seriously want to claim its IMPOSSIBLE that a single one could land on those 4 buttons? Its called probability.
But then the controller would have to flip over scroll down to the newly shown developer menu and then would have to move the check box that says enable devkit and then select it! All in a single fall! No sane person would be able to accidentally brick their console from this! If they did accidently hit the combo and then went to the menu and activated dev mode without knowing what it does well it’s their fault!
Never did I state anything about selecting this or that, i was referring, as was stoob specifically to accidentally hitting the code. Many people would be tempted if they ever brought up the option when the code was entered accidentally.
How you mis interpreted “hitting THE CODE” as hitting the code and then also ticking and then accepting dev mode when dropping the controller, is beyond me.
The code should be changed to something that has 0 chance of happening accidentally.
M$? I see what you did there.
Witty.
People have been using that since the first XBox, if not earlier. Are you still not over it?
You should be asking this of the person who wrote it, not the one who called it.
It isn’t clever. It isn’t original.
And people have been scrolling past posts and high use it without reading them ever since.
How is it not obvious he was being sarcastic?
You would still have to select the menu and then choose to enable the console as a devkit! No one in their right mind would accidentally activate this!
Yep. It’s not a case of press those buttons then your console explodes. About the only time someone will accidentally brick their XBOX One doing this is when they intentionally go in there and start monkeying with the settings. It’s no different to how you can get into the Task Manager on any Windows PC with a simple button combo.
And if they do start playing around with the settings without knowing what they do then if they brick their console it is their own fault!
Once I dropped my keyboard and it went into task manager and bricked my computer.
I would have expected a more complex combo. I wonder how many people will do it by accident and end up in a boot loop. Will this become the Combo Code of Death? I guess people will just have to be more mindful of what they’re doing and pressing while in the System menu, or until MS change the combo.
This wont put you in a boot loop, but will give you access to areas you can change settings that could put you in a boot loop.
I realize that, but the only thing then preventing getting stuck in a boot loop is whether or not people are stupid enough to play around with things they don’t understand. I for one don’t have much faith in people, so….
If you have ever had a child use your game consoles you would see the result of a confused child in the wrong menu, press all the buttons!
I foresee a lot of demo XBox Ones on public display in stores being mysteriously bricked.
Heck, I’m tempted to drop into my local EB and try it now!
If I owned an XB1, I probably would go about trying to get this to work safely.
So in other words, no one knew about this before (funny, considering one guy in the comments said that he pushes those buttons while picking a game all the time… [liar]), and now we all do. No doubt people will do this on purpose, and while fucking around with it, brick their Ones then complain to MS, forcing them to remove another cool feature, only for the same people to complain when it’s gone.
The Internet is an amazing thing!
I’m surprised they don’t require a program on USB to activate it, and possibly a $19 dev account like Windows Phone. While I don’t think they should make it hard, they should make it hard enough that dumb arses couldn’t be bothered.
can you honestly say you don’t button mash while thinking about things? its a natural extension of smashing LRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLR while playing a snes game, just add 2 more buttons… [Faggot].
O Noos my Potato Box is Bust!