The Xbox One is about to become a development platform for everyone. With this summer's anniversary update, developers creating UWPs will be able to turn their Xbox Ones into a development unit and use them to debug and test applications, and all they'll need is a Windows developer registration (a one-off $19 for individuals, $99 for corporations).

But there's one category of application that they won't be able to write: games. Microsoft already has schemes for creating games on Xbox, with its existing partner program and independent developer scheme, ID@Xbox. Any developers that want to submit UWP games will have to be a member of ID@Xbox. While that doesn't cost anything, it's also not open to everyone in the way that Windows developer registration is. Companies have to be approved for ID@Xbox and subsequently agree to an NDA.

This stands in contrast to desktop Windows, where UWP games are open to any developer and Microsoft is doing its best to actively encourage their development. The company is making UWPs in Windows 10 better for gaming in the Anniversary Update by giving developers control of v-sync and access to G-Sync and FreeSync, the adaptive frame rate technology from Nvidia and AMD, respectively.

Company representatives say that apps will be tested when they're submitted to the store to ensure that no regular devs try to sneak a game in.

While this is perhaps understandable for games that use Xbox One's bare metal virtual machine, as there's much more scope for misbehavior and hence a much higher quality bar, it is a strange decision for UWP programs that run in the console's Windows VM, and it introduces a rather peculiar wrinkle in the process. It means that developers of casual games may find themselves able to target every Microsoft platform except one: the device Microsoft has that's purpose-built for playing games. The implication here is that while Microsoft is keen for developers to create UWP games for Windows on the desktop, it'd much rather they create UWP apps for Windows on the Xbox One.

Turning an Xbox One into a development unit will be straightforward; there'll be a new app, "Dev Mode Activation," in the store that converts the console into a development system. This will reboot the Xbox in development mode. In this mode, regular Xbox apps and games aren't allowed (presumably as a way of protecting them from attempts to break out of the sandbox and attack or modify them), but Windows PCs can connect to deploy and debug new apps.

If you want to play games on the system, you'll have to flip the developer switch back off and reboot again.