The October Game Development Kit (GDK) is Available Now
The October GDK release is an exciting one, with something for every type of game developer.
Keeping our focus on delighting players and developers alike, the October Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK) has been released. The key features and fixes highlighted in this blog post are just a handful out of dozens—a mix of improvements for both PC and Xbox development—that improve build or iteration times and deliver powerful tools to optimize your game development experiences. Many of these features are the direct result of developer requests. Thank you for the time, energy, and knowledge you've shared with us.
Microsoft and Xbox are committed to sustainability, and with the release of the October GDK, we have taken additional strides to empower developers to build with sustainability in mind. The October GDK builds and improves on previously released tools to let you optimize power consumption. Power utilization is now displayed on the front panel of the Series X dev kit, and more detailed information is available on a dedicated front-panel screen.
Another major new Xbox Gaming Streaming feature allows developers to customize the resolution and aspect ratio of games to match the device's aspect ratio. With this new feature, developers can use more of the player's screen reducing the need to have black bars around their game, providing a better experience for non 16:9 devices like phones, tablets, and more.
We've also implemented updates to the Unity Plugin package for PC, allowing in-edit iteration, which supports hitting Run/Debug within the Unity editor, and seeing your changes with no additional steps.
The October GDK release has something for every type of game developer. For an in-depth look at everything developers can expect, check the October GDK release notes here. Want samples? Head over to GitHub to download the latest GDK samples.
The new GDK samples for October are:
- Live / PlayFab Store, which demonstrates how to combine Microsoft Store purchases with PlayFab Economy to implement an in-game catalog of virtual currency and items that is managed by PlayFab services.
- xCloud / Custom Resolution, which demonstrates usage of API for understanding streaming device dimensions and to adjust rendering and streaming resolution to fit.