Use with middleware unclear

[TigerCollins]

First of all, it's fantastic to see the new GDK finally here! However, I'm slightly confused about its use with middleware and ID@Xbox.

Developers using Unity can't get a build that GDK will accept without a module for Xbox One. However, Unity developers cannot access the module without the go-ahead from the ID@Xbox team. The requirements for ID@Xbox basically require things from the GDK to receive the go-ahead.

Am I missing something here or is there currently a lack of documentation?

[TigerCollins]

I ask as someone who had been waiting for the new GDK as the Unity Plugin had a plethora of issues.

[FLY1NGSQU1RR3L]

@TigerCollins: You are not missing something. We are making a transition from a world where everything about the GDK is a secret to where the GDK is public and the GDKX (GDK w/ Xbox Extensions) draws the line between building GDK games to publish on Windows vs. GDK games to publish on Xbox consoles.

Next Steps

We are working on if/when/how the public release of the GDK can help the middleware engine acquisition flow which, as you stated, currently requires you to be inside a managed Xbox developer program (e.g. ID@Xbox) before our middleware partners will provide you with a version that has built-in targets that support the GDK and Xbox consoles. Our middleware partners are correctly honoring our existing license and confidentiality agreements, but we have a new license (GDK license) that partners can take advantage of to open up about GDK development on PC.

Thank you for your patience as we learn the best ways to work more in the open and enable any developer, anywhere on the planet, to build games for our platform.

Someone from our team will respond here with guidance or news.

[FLY1NGSQU1RR3L]

@TigerCollins - do you have a list of Unity Plugin issues that have yet to be addressed? That work is on our team as well.

[TigerCollins]

I haven't checked or tested for myself recently, but the issues were;

• Newtonsoft.Json conflicting with the one Unity for packages after Unity 2018
• "Unable to connect to Xbox Live Dev Center right now. Please try again later." when using the association wizard
• When building, the project would fail to compile "Unable to resolve reference 'PresentationFramework'."

For the most part, whenever I found or made a workaround, another issue would arise, unless using Unity 2017.

[JaceMayer]

Sorry to bump this @FLY1NGSQU1RR3L, noticed the comment on the Unity Plugin (https://github.com/microsoft/xbox-live-unity-plugin/), It is possible to get it to work correctly within unity. But its much more work than it should be. Including issues such as socialUser.DisplayPicRaw sometimes returns an invalid URL, usually with the 2nd get parameter which defines the image format (https://github.com/microsoft/xbox-live-unity-plugin/blob/bc8743fe9c765e4641554117babc5a92b0c4a4b0/CSharpSource/Source/Microsoft.Xbox.Services.UWP.CSharp/Social/Manager/XboxSocialUser.cs#L18), due tot the association wizard being broken xboxservices.config file must be painstakingly manually created. And the error's given by Xbox Live for simple things such as the certificate used to sign the UWP app being invalid are unhelpful to say the least "The application requesting authentication tokens is either disabled or incorrectly configured" is a very generic error message, especially in Windows developer mode using a non-retail sandbox ID.

Microsoft's solution to a horrific Creators Program SDK, was to remove the XBL requirement. Which isn't helpful when some people have already implemented XBL, and was denied for ID, are finding that upgrades to Windows (10->11) is breaking things such as the previously mentioned XboxSocialUser.DisplayPicRaw field.

I'd attempt to fix it myself but I can't seem to get the thing to compile at all using the scripts provided my Microsoft.

[FLY1NGSQU1RR3L]

@davidallan17 - sorry for the delay on this, we're still connecting our systems to our public release endpoint and I missed the icon that showed there was a request. Bump any time.

Are you trying to create a GDK target or a UWP target?