This section is under development as we take feedback from the community what information is most useful to present up-front vs. in the documentation (https://aka.ms/gamedevdocs).
There are two distinct audiences for the GDK (developers already in or onboarding into the Xbox ecosystem and developers not yet / interested in the Xbox ecosystem). As the distinct needs of these audiences are more clearly identified, the Readme.MD will serve to help provide clarity and direction on where to get started depending on where a developer is at in their journey to build games for the Xbox App on Windows, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox consoles (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One), or Xbox Cloud Gaming (game streaming).
This is the official General Availability (GA) and first public release of the Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK).
Build version nomenclature will show up on binaries like this: 210600
21 = Year (2021)
06 = Month (June)
There are 3 major GDK releases a year (Spring, Summer, and Fall) which can contain both features and fixes.
There are GDK updates in between which are focused on stability and fixes.
2106.GDK Private Test Build
This is a private test build of the PUBLIC version of the GDK which contains the tools, binaries, and runtimes required to build games for the Xbox App on Windows 10.
**Does not contain the Xbox Extensions**
**Files Updated with GDK vs. PGDK Branding**
- EULA (LICENSE_EN-US.MD)
- INSTALLER SPLASH SCREEN
No other changes except 2106 features, updates and fixes.