For the past ten days or so, it appeared as if Microsoft might be deactivating inactive accounts for its popular Developer Mode for Xbox consoles and Windows. Today, Director of Project Management at Xbox, Jason Ronald, Tweeted that the deactivations were accidental and they are looking into restoring them. "We have no plans to remove or disable Developer Mode on Xbox consoles," stated Ronald unequivocally. "We continue to believe in and support a healthy independent app and game development community on Xbox." He goes on to say if your account was affected, you can email them at [email protected] to have it restored faster.

Several posts had appeared on social media questioning an email from Microsoft informing them their Developer account has been suspended due to inactivity, usually with at least one other person responding to confirm they also received the email. Last week, reddit user u/The Axodoxian posted an email they received informing them of the suspension, and Twitter user @Nanjizal_net posted the same email on the same day. GBAtemp user @tech3475 also posted a thread on our forums about the same thing.

The email allegedly redirects users to the Code of Conduct for Developer Mode, which does stipulate that Developer accounts need to stay in good standing, including "staying active in the Store," though exactly what defines active or inactive is not specified. The Code of Conduct page has also not been updated since September 28, 2021, so while the policy may have existed for some time, it appears that Microsoft has only recently started to enforce it.

Developer Mode has been popular on the Xbox consoles as it allowed users to run Retroarch and emulators on their Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles with only a small fee required to get a Developer account. Many saw it as a clever way for Microsoft to allow hardcore users to run emulators without the need to modify their consoles, severely limiting the number of people interested in hacking the two most recent Xbox consoles.

 

[GDPOVER9000]

i would've thought this was intentional but they backpedaled wayy too quickly for that so im like 80% sure its an actual mistake

I'm not so sure about that. Microsoft egregiously announced that Live Gold price would be raised by double to $120 USD on a Friday in January 2021 (I assume after seeing the acceptance of the $180/year GamePass Ultimate?), but heard a resounding outcry from the Xbox community and media over that weekend that they quickly changed their tune by Monday morning. There are other examples in the past where Microsoft will 'mistakenly' push the envelope excessively, seemingly just to get a temperature check (if they bite, then we move forward with it, if there's backlash then it was an error/mistake/unintentional).

I love my Series X (I don't love SONY, Nintendo, or Microsoft) because it allows me to play Retroarch on a home console more competently than ever before, I can play the original Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 in 4k/60fps locked (no fps drops in major ninja fights anymore!), and I can play/own EVERY SINGLE CALL OF DUTY ITERATION EVER (including COD Classic, COD 2, AND COD 3). Just wish that was the case with the Forza franchise, as well...

 

[ut2k4master]

maybe a stupid question, but does anyone know if you can get banned for using retroarch in dev mode? that's all I'm using it for.

no one has been banned for using retroarch

 

[soup1]

I'm not so sure about that. Microsoft egregiously announced that Live Gold price would be raised by double to $120 USD on a Friday in January 2021 (I assume after seeing the acceptance of the $180/year GamePass Ultimate?), but heard a resounding outcry from the Xbox community and media over that weekend that they quickly changed their tune by Monday morning. There are other examples in the past where Microsoft will 'mistakenly' push the envelope excessively, seemingly just to get a temperature check (if they bite, then we move forward with it, if there's backlash then it was an error/mistake/unintentional).

I love my Series X (I don't love SONY, Nintendo, or Microsoft) because it allows me to play Retroarch on a home console more competently than ever before, I can play the original Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 in 4k/60fps locked (no fps drops in major ninja fights anymore!), and I can play/own EVERY SINGLE CALL OF DUTY ITERATION EVER (including COD Classic, COD 2, AND COD 3). Just wish that was the case with the Forza franchise, as well...

yeah im wondering if thats the case too but unlike the other consoles people will drop off xbox immediately or, worse for them, try explotiting it, if they try blocking emulation or anything of the sort. kinda depressing no large company truly supports emulation for the reason of preservation but it makes sense. Businesses exist for money.

 

[smf]

kinda depressing no large company truly supports emulation for the reason of preservation

Preservation doesn't mean you getting to play whatever old games you want for free on new hardware.

I'm just preserving this Lamborghini Aventador that the owner left parked outside.....

 

[godreborn]

question: was this store presence thing a part of the xbone as well?

 

[chrisrlink]

just remember sony said the exact same for the ps3 being unhackable then they took other OS away and look what happened history is doomed to repeat itself this time for microsoft

 

[smf]

history is doomed to repeat itself this time for microsoft

Good luck

 

[chrisrlink]

Good luck

there have been known exploits in private that turned a profit from MS but now that this is occuring i doubt every hacker/dev will act in good faith especially if they themselves get hit by this i wouldn't sell off exploits if MS pulled the dev mode rug from under my feet in the process

 

[smf]

there have been known exploits in private that turned a profit from MS but now that this is occuring i doubt every hacker/dev will act in good faith especially if they themselves get hit by this i wouldn't sell off exploits if MS pulled the dev mode rug from under my feet in the process

Do you have details on what the exploits were?

The xbox bounty program is broad, an exploit won't necessarily lead to the type of hack that you want.

Even If someone does develop a hack that allowed the equivalent of dev mode and have the choice of selling it to microsoft or giving it away free, then selling it is going to be the obvious choice. They already have the hack, so it doesn't matter to them whether it's released or not.

 

[chrisrlink]

though patched and never released was a webkit entry point (similar to ps4) except as a POC using the windows 10 vuln chakra.dll yes they could continue to sell them to the bounty but MS is skating on thin ice it only takes one dev or a team of them whom lost dev access to flip time will tell

source of webkit existance (Article): https://wololo.net/2017/03/31/xbox-...pt-released-based-chakra-exploit-unconfirmed/

 

[orangy57]

I have basically nothing to add to this conversation other than to confirm that this is real, i haven't bought anything from the Microsoft store since 2018 or earlier and I wasn't ever actually developing anything with the account.

i'd say it's pretty fair since I never even needed to pay for the account in the first place, and there are probably still tons of loopholes to avoid the 20 dollar fee if you ever want to re-activate it.

Spoiler: the email: