Hey, you know that Xbox One you’ve got? It can be a dev kit. Right now.

Remember when Microsoft said that every Xbox One could function as a development kit and that it’d open up the indie game arena to basically everybody? Yep, well today’s the day that starts.

Right now in the Xbox store (on the console), you’ll find the Dev Mode Activation App. Give that little beauty a download and you’ll get a preview build of the full-on development mode that you’ll get access to later this year.

The preview dev mode gets you 448mb of ram to play with, which will get an eventual bump up to a gig. And that’s coming sooner than later, since the update is a part of the Windows 10 anniversary update that’s scheduled to hit this Summer.

For their part, this is Microsoft making good on the promise that they made back in 2013, and also opening the door to prospectively tons of indie games as a part of the ID@Xbox initiative. As such, you might imagine that there’s a bit of red tape to cut through, and there is.

Would-be developers will still need to formally apply for ID@Xbox creds to take part in the development party, and you will also need to sign on the dotted line and make things official with the software giant. Once you do though, you’re good to go and set to develop whatever you like… as long as it fits into the guidelines of Xbox Live that is.

Source: develop