"We have no plans to remove or disable Developer Mode on Xbox consoles": Jason Ronald, after Microsoft disables Dev Mode

Microsoft recently became subject to severe community backlash as developer mode users (especially ones using emulation) on various Xbox One and Series X/S consoles started losing access to their accounts.

However, Jason Ronald, Director of Xbox Program Management, has tweeted that this was a maintenance mistake on their part and that they are working on identifying and reactivating disabled accounts.

The developer mode in Xbox consoles has been a major drawing point for a large portion of gamers as it has made the emulation of almost all retro titles quite convenient.

With only a $20 tag attached to the developer mode access, the feature has also been highlighted in the sales pitches of various Xbox events.

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Microsoft is restoring the revoked Xbox accounts used for emulation

Beginning on 4 January 2022, emulation-only program users and others started reporting on various online forums that they were locked out of the devkit. They received an email from Microsoft which stated the following:

“We have disabled the Windows and Xbox enrollment in your Microsoft Partner Center account because it did not have an active presence in the Store. For reference, see the Developer Code of Conduct which says that an active presence in the Store must be maintained.”

However, Xbox emulation users can heave a sigh of relief with Jason Ronald’s statement. Ronald went on to reveal,

“We continue to believe in and support a healthy independent app and game development community on Xbox.”

Quite interestingly, the series of tweets by Jason Ronald does not directly mention the word “emulation.” It is common knowledge that Xbox users have used the developer mode access to emulate games from all kinds of old consoles such as Wii, PSP, Playstation 1, SNES, etc to varying success.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has also been a public proponent of video game emulation to preserve old titles.

While the company is working on re-enabling the accounts which were statedly disabled due to errors during “regularly scheduled maintenance,” users can reach out to [email protected] to hasten the process.