I Can't Believe I Paid Two Grand For This - Xbox Series X Dev Kit

We got our hands on an Xbox Series X Development Kit, and ours hasn't been banned yet. Can we get it to play games?

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

FOLLOW US
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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:55 Unboxing
6:30 Teardown
9:15 Powering On
12:40 Firmware Version
15:50 OSU
18:00 Moment of Truth
19:30 Conclusion
20:52 Outro

[LinusTechTips]

The extra memory is mostly for all of the extra debugging software, and a little bit for unoptomized games.

[Hobbitstomper]

I worked for Activision. The 10G port is so we can download or stream the latest builds of the game directly onto the local machine. Back in 2010 we had to burn discs every single day and hand them out to QA. Burning discs was often the process that wasted so much time especially towards the end of a project where we had new builds every day. The "burner room guys" always had to come in early to make sure the discs were ready for when QA arrives. It could take hours and hours to hand out copies to a floor of 100+ QA testers. Being able to have a 1G, 2.5G or even 10G ethernet port is a massive timesaver for anyone who needs to get the latest build. Additionally, streaming (as opposed to downloading) to the local machine also helps with security. No more worrying about someone stealing a disk or even an entire devkit. Simply power off the console and the build gets deleted (or at least the leftover temp files become unusable when there is no connection with the server).

[GamersNexus]

Oh, yeah, same exact scenario as ours actually. We were able to launch games and we had tried the same things and got the same error codes, but ultimately got stuck when trying to play the games (we didn't put our whole process in the video or show all the troubleshooting steps). We learned after publishing (from insiders) that they get "banned" even before connecting to the internet because the usage is tokenized regularly against a validation server, so once a developer goes out of business or stops applying for tokens, the token stops renewing and it gets deactivated/banned on connection. This is also annoying because even legitimate developers will eventually end up with bricks when Xbox decides no further XSX development needs to happen.

[Hazzr]

For future notice. Xbox's Backwards compatibility isn't true backwards compatibility. The disc is just used as a license that allows the console to download the actual backwards compatible build of the game that runs on the modern Xbox from the Xbox Live network. i.e. None of those old Xbox Games would have worked unless you were connected to the internet.

Edit: If it wasn't clear, I'm talking about the Xbox 360 games that were bought. I'm not 100% on Xbox One stuff. I think they'll use Smart Delivery if connected to the internet, but I can't see why Xbox One games wouldn't play natively.

[Trong]

"Outside of a game development studio, I believe we will be the first to game on a development kit"

For the Halo Championship Series tournament in December, we played on XDKs because they didn't have enough retail units to host the tournament with.

[ChrisHNgo]

I always like how Linus is like I can't wait to use this and then proceeds to taking it apart and possibly break it before he gets to use it

[necrozim]

The speeds are because, as a developer we send builds to the system frequently. Sometimes running real time from computers to dev kits. So the data transfer needs to be quick, because time is money, and sending 200gb+ of data to the console for testing, scrapping that build and sending a new one is aloootttaaa data.

Also as a dev, ive never used the buttons on the console, its entirely controlled through the controller, additional keyboard or the work machine. I'm talking the most extensive debug menus you've ever seen, ever, in the controller menus, kinda cool tbh.

[pootmahgoots]

"As far as we know, ours is still able to run software"

Microsoft: "Not for long."

[NurzleBurzle]

10 gig port is definitely for moving builds over at speed. On titles I 've working on in QA it wasn't uncommon for us to get 2 or maybe even 3 builds a day at 90GB that needed testing.

[doombuddha]

The internals are cool and all, but honestly I dig this aesthetic and design so much more. The feet on the bottom, the dual color and sunken logo, physical buttons and black and grey. It looks like tech, not a black box. All those vents, btw! I would love a little screen like that, even. It could tell you how much is downloading in the background.

[GeorgeDolbier]

I can confirm. PS3 was a really painful experience. There where just no tools for the Cell processor. Sony Japan gave design specs to IBM but completely left IBM out of making compilers and debuggers for the processor, and Sony had no internal capability to create a devkit, and did not figure this out until really late in the process. Oh the stories I could tell... blah.

[djssnc]

i used to work for Square enix, we had these and ps dev kits all over the place for our game testers / devs/ qa all while the new games being tested on them didnt have a name and were still using code names. These things are heavy

[dh]

I worked in game dev for a while... It's amazing the basic information that isn't shared in these videos that MVG covers.

Any Xbox dev kit since Xb360 has automatically been "banned" on the production XBLive network. They're able to connect to the Devtest XBL network, but they need to be logged into a registered developer account to connect. This also applied to when you can do Dev mode activation on more recent consoles. The minute you boot to Dev mode it puts you in the same walled garden that only allows connections to the DevTest XBL network to prevent piracy/cheating.

Also, ever since XB360 even games on the disc need the console to be activated and download the auth codes to read the discs and execute the code.

There's plenty of breakdowns on the checks and balances that microsoft uses - go look into the Xbox homebrew scene for more information.

[hinknx]

It scares me linus tried to take it apart before testing it first.

[ardemus]

I haven't been in game development for a long time, but I assume that 10GB network port is for uploading new builds and for accessing real-time development and debug tools so you can get insight into running code. Senior developers may make $100-300k a year, and development is often iterative, particularly during debug, so eliminating idle time from the loop is worth a lot of money. The slower port presumably mirrors a real Xbox LAN for the game to use. The spec bump is certainly for unoptimized code, as mentioned, but also loading up extra frameworks and modules to evaluate them in the code base, and running debug and analysis tools. I imagine that the increase from 2x to 2.5x RAM is because the size of tools and unoptimized code have both steadily grown.

[slygamer]

I'm surprised that as an ex-game dev David didn't know that devkits cannot play retail games. That was very common knowledge among developers. It even says in the documentation. This has been the case for all devkits that I have used, back to PS2, Gamecube and original Xbox. Back when PS2 devkits cost AUD$25, 000.

[harisjaved]

I mean you paid 69000 for a gold controller!!! This seems pretty OK with Linus standards 😂

[nanometerq]

I think the 10G port is for quick updating of in development game assets and remote code debugging.

[SirDragonClaw]

The 10gig port is for transferring builds over the network for remote debugging and testing.

[Samueldussault]

Regarding 10 gig networking: I used to work at a QA where we had over 500 Xbox ones receiving daily builds for games that could go well over 100GB. Being able to get a new build on a console in 10 seconds instead of a couple minutes would have saved a LOT of time.