Let's take a quick trip back through Microsoft's disastrous PR campaign for the Xbox One. Apart from the many missteps the company took, announcing policies one week before shifting them another, one such policy that was scorned by many was the company's practice that if indie developers wanted to publish their own games, they originally had to go through Microsoft Studios, or a third-party publisher. Like it did with used games, DRM, and always online, Microsoft eventually switched on the policy, and promised that every console could be used for development. Now, with the Xbox One available across the world, have you bothered to tinker around with the system as a dev kit? Few have, and apparently with good reason.
Accessing the developer settings is apparently easy enough to get to, accessed by a fairly simple sequence with the controller's shoulder triggers and bumpers at the system screen. Redditor LiamHing did just that, and was greeted by the above image, and shared his findings with the rest of Reddit. What followed was a warning by XboxOneDev, who fed consumers and media outlets a LOT of information about the next-gen console's features leading up to its release:
"Please don't mess with anything here for the time being, especially the sandbox ID. You risk putting your box into a boot loop."
A staffer from Epic Games backed up XboxOneDev's statement. The developer further warned, "There are many concerns such as privacy, security, stability etc.., that need to be sorted out before we can allow anyone and everyone to simply sideload an app onto their box."
If two random Redditors doesn't convince you of the possible ramifications, here's a statement Microsoft told Kotaku on the matter:
"Changing the settings in this menu is only intended for developers for Xbox One, and this alone does not turn the console into a development kit. We strongly advise consumers against changing these settings as it could result in their Xbox One becoming unusable. Customers who have put their consoles into this developer setting can revert by restoring factory defaults under Settings / System, select Restore Factory Defaults."
Now, for those of you thinking you have iron balls and throw caution to the wind, you can read the exact sequence below to access the menu and screw around to your heart's content. Just remember, you've been warned. That being said...
Left bumper, right bumper, left trigger, right trigger.
