Xbox Live Publishing

AmpedRobot

You can set the version number x.0.0.0 in Construct's project properties (where you put your game name, window size, etc) and then you don't have to edit it in Visual Studio.

I don't know what Construct advertises, but playing PC games with Xbox 360 controllers was very common, it was pretty much the standard for years. Until this past year you couldn't even make Xbox games with Construct, so I guess everyone knew the 360 controller support was meant for PC.

Xbox 360 came out 12 years ago and is very old, no one is making games for it anymore, that's just how consoles go. I doubt many people turn on their Xbox 360 anymore, even if they still have it, so its current audience would be pretty small. And html5 games would run poorly on it anyway.

As for your other build and controller issues, they sound like regular Construct / game dev issues, so you should probably start a different thread elsewhere. I'm not too knowledgeable about those. I personally have not noticed differences between Xbox One and 360 controllers, but I haven't particularly tested for that.

If you are manually copying files from different builds or something, I would think that's very risky. But again I'm not knowledgeable enough about it.

For the newer NuGet packages, are you talking about the ones that end with XboxOneXDK? It seems those are used by people in ID@XBOX, but not for UWP and the Creators Program.

AmpedRobot I'm going to answer your PM here, since this info might be useful to others.

There seems to be 140 games in the Creators Collection now, new games seem to come fairly frequently.

Here's a web-accessible list of mostly free games on the Creators Collection. Not all of them are free, I don't know why. I also have not figured out how to query it so non-free game show up. The page seems somewhat broken, but what's listed on there is still useful.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/s ... box&q=free

Ashley

Tom

studio Mercato

Does anybody have sample code, tested and working for testing if Xbox Live is available, logging in, and getting the gamertag to display properly? I'm going to be playing with this today, but I don't know how much is needed and what the procedure is, so if somebody's done it, it would help not to reinvent the wheel.

Not sure if you have to build in some delay on layout start, then test for Xbox Live presence, then do the login prompt.

Again, this is very time consuming if you have to do separate capxs just to experiment with code WITHOUT ANY EXAMPLES AT ALL (even Microsoft and Google provide code examples) and keep reinstalling the Xbox Live package in VS and making new builds.

??

Also, the help link on Xbox Live functions in C2 is not working. You have to Google it and go to the C3 page, which is pretty sparse as usual. I know you guys said you would be moving everything to the new web site, but apparently that means help links in C2 will be discontinued, even though there was a promise to maintain?

Ashley

Tom

studio Mercato

Alright, I did a sample capx for Xbox Live login testing, and the login window does come up.

It states "Can't sign you in."

But if you sign in via "another account" link on the bottom, you can sign in, but the capx/xbox live VS build does not detect sign in success.

RIght off the bat, even before sign in, there is an error.

0x80860003

The link Microsoft has on the error has no info.

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/error-co ... 0x80860003

I used the dev account, not some separate test account to test this, but that's not supposed to be an issue.

What now?

The code I used was:

On Start of Layout -> Sign in Silently

On key pressed -> Xbox Live Sign In

On Sign In Success-> Request Profile Info

On Profile Info Success->set a text object and a variable to XboxLive.gamertag

Am I missing something?

Can't really provide the capx because it has my Xbox Live Creators Program unique identifiers?

I'll try a next build without an attempt to sign in silently in the beginning.

Found this in Xbox live docs:

"Test accounts have some other benefits also. They can sign into your Development Sandbox, whereas a regular MSA cannot due to security restrictions." So apparently you have to do this with a test account.

I was misled by this Scirra tutorial:

https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/9540/u ... n-uwp-apps

"(Your real account may also work in the Creators Program..."

But...

Can't log in with the test account either.

And the Sign In Xbox Live feature is really buggy. Often you have to press a key twice (if you have it hooked up to a key) for the login window to come up and it immediately goes to can't sign in.

Also, how would I associate my game with my gamertag/Xbox Live display name/account? Something required by Microsoft.

Can't even find my game under search even though it has been officially published and it has been more than 3 business days.

This is really disappointing on the back end of so much work and still no help from Scirra or anybody else.

There is this code for signing in silently supposedly:

Windows::Foundation::IAsyncOperation<SignInResult^>^ XboxLiveUser::SignInSilentlyAsync(Platform::Object^ coreDispatcher)

And this one for creating the XboxLiveUser object:

XboxLiveUser user = ref new XboxLiveUser(Windows::System::User^ windowsSystemUser);

Per WinRT (supposedly the Xbox Live package we installed?) and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... p-projects.

But no idea how to integrate it with the built VS package/build.

It only calls the C2runtime.js.

Where and how would one stick it in?

AmpedRobot The link I listed above just shows free games. Like I said there are about 140 games in the Creators Collection now, so then there's probably about 80 paid games. I also see your game Dark Sun from an Xbox One.

Good point about page views. Our game Crystal Brawl has about 1000 pages views over the last 7 days. However when the Creators Collection first launched in August, it had more than 30,000 page views the first week. That first week brought the most installs by far, and installs have considerably tapered off since mid-October.

It's estimated there are about 35 million Xbox Ones sold so far. If your game supports Windows 10 PCs then that increases your potential customer base. But for our game, Xbox One has about 75x more installs than PC, so PC is pretty insignificant. But even on Xbox One, the Creators Collection is not highly visible. You really should check it out on an Xbox One if you haven't yet.

I don't understand your sandbox issue. Did you get it working before you first submitted your game? Did you follow instructions like this, which you should have found in the tutorial above?

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/g ... -sandboxes

You can also try getting help in this forum:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forum ... boxlivedev

And the code you found is in C++, you can't just stick it in.

Thank you, Studio.

That's very helpful.

And yes, you are absolutely right.

The interest among the Xbox audience for the Creators' Collection is absolutely dismal.

What was supposed to be the busiest play Saturday before Christmas generated only 81 page views for my listing.

The perception must be that these are mostly unfinished "garbage" games, so apparently we are in the garbage pile again.

In retrospect, it seems obvious, but hindsight is always 20/20.

So, I did everything right, but still lost.

1) They tell you the indie game scene is exploding, so you decide to make a game.

2) They tell you, make a simple 2D game for starters because 3D games are too hard, so you'll never get anywhere. And I did exactly that.

3) My thinking was that people are always hungry for new games, but that is not the case. People are mostly playing what's "in" right now. And what is in? Star Wars Battlefront. And even super big budget titles with millions in advertising are having trouble competing with that.

4) Maybe I could push my game on Google Play someday, but I don't have money for AdWords and Google will not give you any visibility. Everybody has to pay for advertising space.

So? People like you and me are stuck in the water.

And if you give away the game for free, yeah you might get millions of downloads, but you will not make any money, not significant money, not with adds anyway, and you are severely limited by the 100mb cap with Google Play as there is no way to integrate expansion files with C2 currently. So?

There we are.

And then there are the technical issues.

Thank you for the link, but I alrwady followed that to the T.

My first 2 submissions to Microsoft went through fine, and, as you said, apparently, that submission is still listed.

I also figured out why the keyboard controls were slow in simulator: 3 exclusive, but simultaneous control systems, which work fine in the browser, but fail for PC after Xbox translation.

So for my third submission, I expanded game availability to PC, but only with an Xbox One or an Xbox 360 controller because the game would just be too easy, not as much fun with keyboard controls and then Microsoft started requiring Xbox live authentication and they won't let this submission go through otherwise (I think they were just being kind before to see if the game would sell over Christmas).

And this is the link they just e-mailed me that I have to follow, which is exactly the link I found and the C++ code I posted before.

"Hello,

Thank you for contacting us. For additional assistance with this issue, please refer to the following link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... p-projects

If you need any additional assistance with Xbox features, please contact Developer Support via your Dev Center or here: http://aka.ms/storesupport.

Thank you,

Sarah

Microsoft Store Team"

So, the C2 Xbox exporter is now broken.

So, we now need to integrate C++ authentication code into projects unless our creators from on high come up with an equivalent.

And the "sign in" feature with C2 is broken.

I can't even change 2 screenshots because Microsoft won't let it through.

studio Mercato

Studio, do you have a sample sign in capx without obviously the Creators or higher Program info?

I'm guessing you must have gone through this too with the Microsoft audits.

Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

What's supposed to happen when you activate the C2 sign in feature? Is a login box supposed to pop up for putting in the Xbox Live profile sign in info?

It doesn't with me. It immediately tries an auto sign in? But no idea with what login and password and then states "can't sign in" and there's a "use a different account login" link on bottom.

Is the sign in supposed to work with test accounts only or non-test accounts?

I authorized my main publishing account as a test account and added another one.

But I just noticed from that link you sent, "Test accounts can only sign in to development sandboxes."

So maybe the sign in feature is supposed to work only with non-test accounts?

Haven't tested this yet.

But I'm guessing I might have made a simple mistake somewhere in there in the process, which is why this isn't working.

Again, this is why step-by-step tutorials are so helpful.

Also, I was a bit hasty on the Xbox traffic. So far it's been about 800 people, which is still pretty pitiful supposedly considering a 50m audience out there (unless everyone is playing PS4 right now). It was highest on December 23, if anyone is interested, about 112 people.

Also, Studio, how do I do an at you? You have a space in your name and an never formats properly in the post, plus there seem to be 2 similar lookalike profiles for you out there, one even using the same avatar, but with no space in the name.

Also, am I supposed to switch my PC to the retail sandbox when testing the sign in feature?

--

This is the error code I'm getting, even after switching to the retail sandbox (like a typical user out there?) when trying to sign in with no associated Microsoft articles on it.

"Sorry! No Support articles were found for "0x80860003"

Ashley

Tom

After switching back to the retail sandbox, the sign in does work with a test account, but when you click the "let's play" feature from the Microsoft pop-up box, it goes back to "can't sign in" and the same error code.

Also, the gamertag is NOT displayed in the test capx, even after a successful sign in via the Microsoft pop-up and this is what Microsoft requires.

And to advance, you seem to have to click the "let's play" button in there.

What is going on here and when are we going to get some help with this from the creators of the software?

This should work in the simulator via PC right? I mean there's no way to test on an actual Xbox without publishing first? Not without a development kit? And you obviously don't get one via the Creators Program.

Ashley

Tom

Have you seen this?

http://www.nonostante.io/devblog/2017-0 ... games.html

Ashely

This thread looks relevant to my issue. I also can't get the Gamertag to show up via the XboxLive.Gamertag string. Can we get this fixed? My game's waiting on it, since Microsoft won't accept it without the visible Gamertag.

I am also receiving the same XBOX Can't Sign In error when debugging my game via Visual Studio 2015 Update 3. Do I need to Remote Debug my game on my XBOX One machine running on dev mode?

I got it working (somewhat):

Here's how:

First i setup my XBOX One as a Development Machine. I was hesitant to do this yet, I planned on doing 100% of development and testing on my Windows 10 PC via Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, but gave this a shot, and when i did following these guides:

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... activation

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... t-accounts

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ng-started

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ment-setup

(Links not allowed with my current rep it seems, hopefully this link is visible: pastiebin.com/5a7155c3bb3dd)

Things started working, including XBOX Live Sign-In and Gamertag retrieval. I wish Microsoft had just one article, but things are spread so broad apart that it makes things a bit more difficult to follow. That being said, setup your XBOX One console for development, then log-into your Microsoft Dev Dashboard and click on the button under your apps XBOX Live Creators Program screen labeled "Test" to propagate the changes to your xbox. Then make a new account on xbox.com for testing. Then on your XBOX Console add an existing new test account, yes the one you just made on xbox.com. Make sure its check-box is checked (enabled). Then under the Remote Access portion of the XBOX One Home app click Remote Access Settings and setup basic authentication so you can visit that portal on your development machine.

Finally, make sure you're exporting your project to the location on your hard-drive you think you are, i made a mistake and was exporting my project to ~/Desktop rather than ~/Documents, only to further confuse myself and waste time, hopefully this won't happen to you, so double-check the export path.

I also have been binding my App Store details with the generated VS Studio project every time i export the project. I noticed i needed to do this every time i export my project, maybe im doing it wrong? Who knows, but hey it works. Also make sure to uninstall and reinstall the XBOX Live nuget packages every time you export your project, i know its annoying, but it works.

Finally, select Local Debugging and it should work on your Windows Dev Machine and remotely (via Remote Debugger) on your XBOX One.

Hope this all makes sense, excuse the grammar mistakes, its late and i typed this up in a hurry.

AmpedRobot ^

Oh, hi there.

I gave up on this!

What can I say.

Been bored, so I revisited this thread.

I'll take a look.

Thanks very much for posting.

Is the exact C2 code you used in any of those links?

It'll be hard for me to get an actual Xbox One at the moment. Drained myself to the bone believe it or not and I am currently living in limbo (even though my resume technically qualifies me for $150,000/year jobs), so might be a while before I can even try this, but I'll read it.

As it is, the 2D game could probably use another year of full time work to make it truly what I envisaged, at least for starters, even though it is a fully functional game now.

Every kid/adult out there expects an $80m production and there's just no market for 2D retro games.

Lumberyard is the way to go from Amazon (I have all the skills to make it happen, if not the time/money for 1 year of full time work estimated to make the first 3D multiplayer map).

Anyone wanna team up?

And then there's the issue of getting the word out without $6k for a booth at PAX, but if I return to my regular profession, maybe not such a big issue (assuming I stick around).

I've had a breakthrough also, actually designed a 3rd race for the universe (besides the tigers and the eagles), which is unbelievably cool and I never thought I'd be able to do it, so I have like 10 specialties of those guys worked out with weapons.

If I get this to work (your solution above), might lower the price on Xbox to $0.99.