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Xbox 360 running XBMC (XBMC for Xbox360?) port possible someday?
#61
that firmware hack doesn`t allow unsigned programs to run on the 360.
it only allows raw/unmodified dumps, of games from the same  region as your console, to run.



#62
MS to offer Xbox 360 programming tool for amateurs

... not that the coders here are amateurs... quite the opposite! Big Grin

I'm have no idea if these tools will allow the porting of XBMC but I'm hoping it will. Wink
I'm not an expert but I play one at work.
#63
The free BETA version of XNA that should come out in the end of August 2006 will only support creation of Windows games/applications, we will have to have to wait for the retail version which should come out in November or December 2006 (and then also join the $99 annual-fee "creators club") to be able to compile games/applications for the Xbox360.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/...post711831

And like I assumed, one will have to have a Windows PC running the XNA framework up-and-running while using the game/application on the Xbox360, (the PC with XNA must be connected to the Xbox360 via a local non-routed network), ...so no one will be able just install XNA, load the game/application and then uninstall XNA, ...at least not in the inital non-BETA release:
Quote:Q: How exactly can I share my 360 game to other 360 users? Will my game only be available to people with the XNA "Creators Club" subscription? Will it be available to all 360 users that have an Xbox Live account?
A: There is currently no supported way to share binaries on the Xbox 360. Currently, there are four requirements that must be met in order to share a game targeting Xbox 360 which is developed with XNA Game Studio Express.
1. The individual you are planning to share the game with must be logged in to Xbox Live and have an active subscription to the XNA Creators Club
2. The receiving user must have downloaded the XNA Framework runtime environment for the Xbox 360
3. The receiving user must have XNA Game Studio Express installed on their own development PC
4. The game project, including all source and content assets, must be shared with the receiving user. The receiving user then compiles and deploys the game to their Xbox 360.
Quote:Q: How exactly will I be able to run a game built with XNA Game Studio Express on my Xbox 360?
A: On Windows, you'll be able to develop, test and distribute software created with XNA Game Studio Express for free. When you sign up for the nominally priced annual subscription to XNA Game Studio Express for Xbox 360, you'll be able to write a game on Windows, then send it to your Xbox 360 to test and enjoy. Eventually, you'll be able to distribute that code to other Xbox 360s, opening up a unique publishing avenue which will democratize game development on consoles.
Quote:You can share your games to anyone else in the creator's club. Just send the XNA project to them in email, on a memory key, put it up on your site for download, whatever. They load it up on their PC in their copy of XNA Game Studio Express, and send it to their Xbox.
Quote:The goal is that, in the future, they'll have a channel for people who are not members of the creator's club to download and play the homebrew games. Like, there's Live Aracade, and there will be Creator's Arcade or some such. Anyone in the creator's club would theoretically be able to submit to Creator's Arcade and MS would examine it to make sure it's not really a pirate game or won't harm your Xbox, then they put it up for everyone to download and check out. That aspect of it is a little further out (think next year) and they're still working on details like ownership and copyright, how they'll examine submissions for safety, etc.
So nor will the initial non-BETA release allow you to run a ported version of XBMC. Oh well, I guess it is a good beginning? Oo
...I just hope that real modchips for the Xbox360 that can run unsigned code nativly without XNA will come out eventually Confused


More information is available on Xbox-Scene.com for those who are interested in reading futher:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/...cjTzff.php
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/...NoiWVz.php
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
#64
it seems to me that this whole XNA thing is a big new avenue of attack for hackers attempting to get unsigned code running on the 360. in the official writeup i saw this

"Q: Why isn't there any Xbox 360 support in the beta?
A: Microsoft does not release beta software on the Xbox 360 for security reasons. Thanks to the design and implementation of the XNA Framework on both Windows and Xbox 360 however, games developed using the XNA Game Studio Express beta starting August 30th will be easily adapted to run against the Xbox 360 retail console upon availability of the finished tools later this holiday."

given MS's track record with this sort of thing, i suspect this will be the 360's undoing Smile
#65
From a news post on xbox-scene.com:
Quote:From David Weller's Blog (Community Manager at Microsoft's Game Technology Group):

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what is coming with XNA and what the $99 "fee" is, so I wanted to (attempt to) clarify the confusion.

XNA, as a term, refers to a family of products and services. We announced two major pieces of the family at this week's Gamefest: The XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express (GSE for short).

Let's start with XNA GSE. It's the tool that helps you build and test games, and runs on Windows. This is what will be available as a beta release on August 30th.

Then we have the XNA Framework. Technically, there's two pieces to the XNA Framework:
1. the libraries (or assemblies in our case), and
2. the runtime.

The XNA Framework libraries for both platforms are the same, which is how we enable you to write games that work on both platforms. Those libraries (for Windows) will be delivered along with XNA Game Studio Express on August 30th.

Now, about the runtimes. In the case of Windows, we just use the standard .NET 2.0 runtime. Easy as that.

For the Xbox 360, we created a custom runtime, based on the .NET Compact Framework. This runtime must be downloaded/installed on your Xbox 360 before you can run an XNA-based game on it. Getting the Xbox 360 runtime requires a subscription to the XNA Creators Club, and it won't be available until XNA Game Studio Express hits initial (1.0) release during this holiday season.

Right now, the $99 annual subscription cost (or $49 for 4 months) of the XNA Creators Club covers the cost of downloading and providing security servicing/updates to the runtime. We are investigating ways to make the subscription more valuable, and will have more details as we get closer to initial launch date for the subscription service.

So, repeat after me:
* Building games using XNA Game Studio Express costs nothing on Windows. Building games using XNA Game Studio Express costs nothing on Windows.
* Deploying games on the Xbox 360 requires a membership in the Xbox Creators Club. Deploying games on the Xbox 360 requires a membership in the Xbox Creators Club.


Read More: David Weller's Blog
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
#66
From what I understand, Microsoft has release an SDK to create Xbox360 games called XNA. From what I get out of it sounds like you can pay a annual fee and via xboxlive, will authenticate your subscription and allow you to run your own homebrew. It even supports c# on the 360 via a tweaked CFx 2.0

If this is correct, is there a possibility of porting XBMC to the 360 and do it legitly? Does anyone know any more details about it?
#67
I've aldready posted about this here (link) and for your information the BETA version of XNA that released later today is for Windows only, (not for Xbox360, the initial BETA version that will support the Xbox360 will not be release until December 2003 at the earliest). And by the way, the XNA currently only supports C# for the .NET Framework 2.0, it doesn't support C or C++ as far as I can tell, (but maybe C/C++ could be used in libraries or DLLs like C is used in XBMC in some libraries and DLLs). Also the XNA only compatible with Visual C# Express, and not Visual Studio 2005 which we use for XBMC.

I also posted this in this other topic-thread:
Gamester17 Wrote:I'm not a programmer/developer myself so maybe this is based of wrong information but please bare with me. The XNA Framework for Windows is coming out very soon (at least the first BETA version) and XBMC could probebely be ported to Win32 (Microsoft Windows Operating-Systems) relativly quick and easily by one or more skilled developer using that. If so then that ported version should be able to run on any Windows Operating-System that supports the .NET Framework 2.0 runtime-enviroment (like Windows XP, Windows XP Embedded, and Windows CE 6.0), and run on all hardware that those Windows Operating-Systems supports. Now Windows Operating-Systems usually only run on x86 processor/hardware-platforms, however Windows CE 6.0 supports ARM, MIPS and SH4 processors/platforms as well. Though Windows CE 6.0 does not support as many device drivers as Windows XP and Windows XP Embedded does, and Windows CE 6.0 does only support the Windows .NET Compact Framework 2.0, however that happens to be the same Compact Framework that will run on the Xbox360 when the XNA Framework for Xbox360 is released in December this year, ...thus possible making it easier to first port XBMC to Windows using the XNA and then only port that version to the Xbox360 when the XNA for it comes out).

Porting XBMC to Windows (with the XNA) might make a few end-users whine and moan as they have will to pay for the Windows Operating-System (if they want to stay legal), but it would be SO MUCH easier for programmer/developer to do that then to try to port XBMC to Linux, PS3 or any other platform, as XBMC GUI code so heavily relies on the DirectX API to work, (which both the mentioned Windows Operating-Systems and the Xbox360 supports).

As for the hardware, I always though the VIA EPIA MINI-ITX Motherboards Series would make a great hardware platform for a Windows-based HTPC media center, (or as a dedicated stand-alone PVR/DVR media-player). The processors on the VIA EPIA mainboards might not be that fast processors but the latest incarnation of built-in graphic-chips on them supports decoding of MPEG-4 ASP and AVC (H.264) with the GPU at High-Definition resolutions, also with their embedded platform being so small in size (making fit in virtualy any casing) and a huge community behind it makes it very attractive to open source developers.

PS! All said and done I like to end this 'rant' by saying that I personaly think the original Xbox still has a few great years left it in it,
Used Xboxes are cheap and they are good enough for all Standard- Definition resolutions, (with the exception of H.264/AVC video).
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#68
iow; never gonna happen.
#69
But, if it does happen, it sounds like it'll automatically run on both PC and xbox360 which would be nice Smile
#70
media portal will be ported way before us thou.. their codebase is c#
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Image
#71
FYI, XNA Game Studio Express first public BETA (for Windows only!) has now been released, this is from Microsoft's press release:
Quote:"Microsoft today released the public beta of XNA Game Studio Express, the pioneering technology designed to open up game development to new audiences, including hobbyists, students and independent developers, in the hopes of injecting a shot of creativity into the electronic entertainment industry.

Novice game creators can download the tool today from http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna to develop games for Windows XP and Windows Vista, at no charge. The games built on Windows can be migrated to the Xbox 360 console system starting this holiday season as part of the XNA Creators Club subscription for $99 a year, or a four-month trial cost of $49, opening up retail console game development to anyone for the first time.

Since the announcement of XNA Game Studio Express' upcoming availability on August 14, the public response has been overwhelming - more than 100 schools have requested information on how they can incorporate XNA Game Studio Express into their curricula and the breakthrough news has generated millions of hits on Internet search engines.

As one of nearly 20 leading universities worldwide incorporating XNA Game Studio Express into their curricula, including Southern Methodist University's Guildhall and the University of Southern California's GamePipe, Microsoft announced additional support from DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Washington, a leader in the field of digital interactive entertainment education. Through its ProjectFUN software running on XNA Game Studio Express and summer workshops starting in 2007, DigiPen will bring Xbox 360 console game development for the first time ever to thousands of children ages 10 through 16.

"XNA Game Studio Express is an incredibly accessible tool for making games for Microsoft's game platforms and will provide our university students with modern tools and console development experience," said Claude Comair, founder and chairman of the board at DigiPen Institute of Technology. "And now with our ProjectFun for XNA Game Studio Express, we're eager to extend our educational offerings on Windows and Xbox 360 to include young children."

In conjunction with today's release of the XNA Game Studio Express beta, XNA partner GarageGames will begin enrollment for its Torque X beta program which can be accessed via http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna. Torque X includes both Torque Game Builder and a version of the Torque Shader Engine which have both been developed in conjunction with XNA Game Studio Express, allowing budding game developers to use drag and drop tools to easily create great games. The final version of Torque X will be released this holiday.

The final version of XNA Game Studio Express and the XNA Creators Club for building and distributing games on the Xbox 360 will launch simultaneously this holiday. XNA Game Studio Professional will be available in spring 2007
"

Good things to know BEFORE you install XNA Game Studio Express (XNA GSE), the information here mostly gathered from David Weller's blog*:
- XNA GSE (Game Studio Express) will ONLY run on Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit) with Service Pack 2.
- Before you install XNA GSE (Game Studio Express) you must first uninstall "SQL Server 2005" and the ".NET Framework 2.0"
- XNA GSE (Game Studio Express) can co-exist on the same machine as Visual Studio 2005, but you can't use GSE from it, as this GSE BETA is only compatible with Visual C# Express.
- Download and install Visual C# Express (without it XNA GSE will refuse to install)
- Download and install the latest DirectX SDK (only required if want to use XACT to author/modify your audio, otherwise the latest runtime is enough)
- Go to http://connect.microsoft.com and sign up for the XNA Game Studio Express Beta program (under Available Connections"), that way you can get support/help, search for exisiting issues/questions, and submit bugs or feature suggestions), read this for more information.

* David Weller is the "Community Manager" at Microsoft's Game Technology Group.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
#72
spiff Wrote:iow; never gonna happen.
I frankly don't understand this. Xbox hardware has ceased production, consoles break and sooner or later there won't be Xbox'es available to run your software. It might be in two years, it might be in four, but I think there's no denying it will become progressively harder to become users of XBMC.

There's no plan for a Windows port (Media Portal is a different beast, IMHO inferior to what XBMC offers, save for the PVR functions which are not comparable for obvious reasons), no plan for a PS3 version and no plan for a Xbox360 version. Are you saying that it's your intention to let this GREAT piece of software die a slow death?

Or are you waiting for 360 to be cracked? Because that would frankly surprise me. The XNA thing would allow XBMC to become a totally legit software, an achievement that, I feel, would rightly give you merit for what you've done here (which is A LOT).

All of the above with no offense or anything, just genuinely curious about what I feel being a great piece of coding.
#73
a) xbmc is written mainly in c/c++ - we would have to port it (and possibly all the libraries we use) to another language to use it with this thing
b) even if we did it, do you really think ms would let us distribute it through their service? hint; ip violations
#74
XBMC is open source so anyone can do the work as long as they comply with the GLP the code it is licensed under, it doesn't have to be Team-XBMC who ports it. True XBMC source code is mainly C/C++ so it would not be something you do over a weekend, but it would be much easier than to port it to Linux or PlayStation, as XBMC depends so heavely on DirectX.
ashlar Wrote:I frankly don't understand this. Xbox hardware has ceased production, consoles break and sooner or later there won't be Xbox'es available to run your software. It might be in two years, it might be in four, but I think there's no denying it will become progressively harder to become users of XBMC.
I just like to add that I totaly disagree with that argument, the Xbox homebrew scene/community is HUGE, (much larger than the Sega Dreamcast scene and that is still going strong I hear), and according to a Microsoft announcement on the 10th May 2006, over 24million Xbox consoles have been sold worldwide. As other people get tired of their 'old' Xboxes more are becomig available on the used market MAKING IT EASIER to get hold of fully working consoles, for less and less as each year goes by. Which is great for us 'modders' that know the potential it still has, with XBMC. I for one am not getting rid of my Xboxes, and everyone I know who know about XBMC are also getting more than just one Xbox. Sure I too would love to have XBMC on Xbox360 or a PC just to be able to playback HDTV movies, but on the other hand I can't afford a HDTV display (yet) nor it it easy to get hold of HDTV movies.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
#75
spiff Wrote:b) even if we did it, do you really think ms would let us distribute it through their service? hint; ip violations
hmmm... ip violations of what? I dumbly can't recognize the hint... sorry! Blush
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Xbox 360 running XBMC (XBMC for Xbox360?) port possible someday?3