Skip to main content

Xbox is working on reactivating mistakenly disabled dev mode accounts

Microsoft has reportedly been disabling developer mode access on various Xbox One and Series X/S consoles. On January 4, 2022, a thread on GBAtemp.com alerted the community using the program that a user had been locked out. This resulted in other dev mode activators checking and subsequently finding out that they had been kicked from the program.

However, Jason Ronald, Director of Xbox Program Management, stated in a tweet that this was a maintenance mistake and that they are actively working on identifying and re-enabling disabled accounts.

Microsoft Is Disabling Dev Mode Access on Xbox... | MVG

Xbox’s dev mode began as a simple $25 devkit for Xbox One and Series X/S developers. However, when owners found out that the emulation frontend, RetroArch, could be used to emulate various consoles on Series X/S and One consoles, it became a new reason for players to adopt Xbox’s next-gen consoles.

Starting on January 4, emulation-only users of the program and others found they’d been locked out of the devkit. These locked players received the following message in an email from Microsoft:

“We have disabled the Windows and Xbox enrollment in your Microsoft Partner Center account because it did not have an active presence in the Store. For reference, see the Developer Code of Conduct which says that an active presence in the Store must be maintained.”

According to the developer code, one must actively be posting developed materials to the Store and conducting similar activities to stay in good standing with dev mode. If no such activity is performed within 90 days, Xbox will disable your account as seen with the current cases.

We have no plans to remove or disable Developer Mode on Xbox consoles. We continue to believe in and support a healthy independent app and game development community on Xbox.

— Jason Ronald (@jronald) January 5, 2022

Thankfully, Xbox has confirmed that this was a simple error as part of a regularly scheduled maintenance to clean up inactive accounts. The company is now working on reactivating these accounts. Jason Ronald states, “Once an account has been reactivated, users will be able to reenable Developer Mode on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles.”

You can contact ReportApp@microsoft.com if your account is among those that were falsely disabled.

Editors' Recommendations

DeAngelo Epps
De'Angelo Epps is a gaming writer passionate about the culture, communities, and industry surrounding gaming. His work ranges…
Is Starfield on Xbox One?
Key art for Starfield

Starfield is one of the biggest games of the year and space exploration has never looked so good (especially on a new PC with the correct settings tweaked). Released natively for PC and Xbox Series X, a lot of gamers are going to be left out of Bethesda's latest RPG — it'll never be released on PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch. But there's good news if you're still playing on a last-gen Xbox One. While Starfield isn't being released on the older console directly, there's still a way to play on Xbox One.

There are also a few other ways to play Startfield without an Xbox at all.
How to play Satrfield on Xbox One

Read more
You don’t need an Xbox Series X to play Starfield. Here’s how
Key art for Starfield

Starfield is the highest-profile Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S game since Halo Infinite, but the game isn't locked to those two consoles. Thanks to cloud gaming and Microsoft's more open-ended mentality of making its games available on a wide variety of platforms, you don't have to own one of Microsoft's current-gen systems or have the Xbox app installed on your PC.
No, it's not on PS5 or Nintendo Switch, but if you want to play Starfield while it's at the center of the video game industry zeitgeist, here are some places where it's playable other than the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series X, and Xbox PC app.
Steam

The most obvious choice if you want to play Starfield elsewhere is to pick it up on Steam. While Microsoft does have a proprietary PC launcher of its own, Microsoft now consistently releases its own games through Valve's launcher. Bethesda joined Xbox Game Studios in 2021 and has a long history of making its games available on Steam as well, so it's not too surprising that Starfield is available on the platform.
Starfield already proving quite popular on the platform too, having peaked at 266,000 concurrent players, according to SteamDB at the time I'm writing this. If you're looking for a way to play Starfield natively on the hardware you own without using a Microsoft platform or service, this is your best option. It'll run on Steam Deck too, although that's not the only way to experience Starfield on the go.
Xbox Game Pass app on Android

Read more
Nvidia DLSS support for Starfield teased alongside stability-improving update
A ship lands on a planet in Starfield.

Bethesda Game Studios just released the first update for its sci-fi issue Starfield. It's a smaller hotfix-level patch mainly focused on improving the game's stability and fixing some quest-blocking bugs. A message from the developer also confirmed that a lot of major features that are in the works for future patches, including Nvidia DLSS support on PC.

The list of patch notes for Starfield update version 1.7.29 explains that it made "various stability and performance improvements to reduce crashes and improve frame rate," including one related to installations on Xbox Series X/S. Also, quest-blocking issues in All The Money Can Buy, Into the Unknown, and Shadows of Neon are now all fixed. While that list isn't long, a blog post and tweet from Bethesda explains that it's just the start of "a regular interval of updates that have top community-requested features."

Read more