Open source dev gets Win32 apps running on Xbox One

One of the cool elements that come with owning an Xbox One is getting select Microsoft Store apps from your PC on your gaming console. Powered by Microsoft Universal Windows Platform, this is really a great feature for developers, but one open source champion, who has chosen to remain anonymous, has found a way to unlock the true power of Xbox by getting CLI Win32 apps running on the console (via Piunika Web.)

The entire codebase and tool for this project is available on GitHub, and a brief getting started post from the developer is here. Simple as that post may sound, things might still be a bit out of reach for the average user. An SSH/telnet client and Visual Studio 2015 or 2017 are prerequisites, and you’ll need to pay up to switch your console to developer mode to get started. After that is done, you’ll have access to the Xbox Shell and you’ll be able to use the codebase tool to write and then dispatch or run vanilla Win32 CLI apps on Xbox One.

As the developer notes, though this is a rather technical process, it is not an exploit or breakthrough. This method is rather taking advantage of the debugging features of the Xbox One developer mode. It should also be noted that this is a proof-of-concept, and is not homebrew, or the other “hacking” offerings which people usually want.

There is plenty of room for others to better on the code and dive deeper and improve, but it does seem a bit limited for now. Considering that the Xbox One already runs Windows 10, this could eventually become a rather killer little trick to turn the console in a PC for developers.