The Xbox Development Kit (XDK) is a software development kit created by Microsoft used to write software for the 2001 Xbox gaming system. The XDK includes libraries, a compiler, and various tools used to create software for the Xbox. The XDK has the option to integrate itself into Microsoft Visual Studio 2002 or 2003. This is needed if one wants to develop applications or games for the Xbox. The XDK also includes a tool to record in-game footage, which has been widely used to create high-quality screenshots and trailers.
Purpose
The XDK allows software creators to create, run and distribute applications on the Xbox platform. Xbox 360 XDKs were based on all three generations of the Xbox 360 Design ("Phat", "Slim" and "E"). There were XNA Kits, which were used at some expos and given to game studios, Stress Kits, which were used to test the power of the Xbox 360 and various conditions such as undervolting and overvolting and issued to Microsoft developers only, and Demo kits, which were used to demo games. Some but not all XDKs include a sidecar which was used to emulate the DVD drive and act as a hard drive and on older XDKs with older recoveries, used for PIX Debugging. Bundled with XDKs is the Xbox 360 SDK used to connect to the console, enable memory editing, file management, and integrate to