Instructions for getting xbox indie games portal account via DreamSpark
23
Page | 1 Introduction - Important information In August 2012, App Hub got divided into the following 2 app stores: Windows Phone Dev Center and Xbox Indie Games portal (not to be confused with Xbox.com). We still have integration between the 2 app stores and DreamSpark as we had with App Hub: students with a DreamSpark verified account can get access to these two app stores to post their apps for free, but there is an age limit of 18. A few important things to note: - In order to sign up to Xbox Live Indie Games portal (ex App Hub) you need to first create an Xbox Live account. - If you previously had an App Hub Account prior to August 2012, there is no path for you to register on Xbox Indie Games Portal for free as a student, so you need to create a brand new account, i.e. a new Microsoft Account (previously Windows Live ID). - It is important that you follow the steps below exactly in the order described, i.e. get a Microsoft Account first, create an Xbox Live account and put in your billing information (you do not get charged, this is just for the purpose of determining your country of residence), then create a verified DreamSpark account and map it to the same Microsoft Account and then go to create a new Xbox Live Indie Games Portal (ex App Hub) account. Step 1: Create a Microsoft Account 1) Create a brand new Microsoft Account at: https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?lic=1 . Make sure to click on ‘’Or get a new email address’’ so that you create an account with an hotmail domain.
Transcript
Page | 1
Introduction - Important information In August 2012, App Hub got divided into the following 2 app stores: Windows Phone Dev Center and Xbox Indie Games portal (not to be confused with Xbox.com). We still have integration between the 2 app stores and DreamSpark as we had with App Hub: students with a DreamSpark verified account can get access to these two app stores to post their apps for free, but there is an age limit of 18. A few important things to note:
- In order to sign up to Xbox Live Indie Games portal (ex App Hub) you need to first create an Xbox Live account. - If you previously had an App Hub Account prior to August 2012, there is no path for you to register on Xbox Indie Games Portal for
free as a student, so you need to create a brand new account, i.e. a new Microsoft Account (previously Windows Live ID). - It is important that you follow the steps below exactly in the order described, i.e. get a Microsoft Account first, create an Xbox Live
account and put in your billing information (you do not get charged, this is just for the purpose of determining your country of residence), then create a verified DreamSpark account and map it to the same Microsoft Account and then go to create a new Xbox Live Indie Games Portal (ex App Hub) account.
Step 1: Create a Microsoft Account 1) Create a brand new Microsoft Account at: https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?lic=1 . Make sure to click on ‘’Or get a new email
address’’ so that you create an account with an hotmail domain.
Step 2: create an Xbox Live Free account and fill in your billing information 2) Go to http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/join, choose “Get a Free account”
3) Enter the Microsoft Account you just create as your Xbox Live account log-in (note that you might actually get logged in automatically if you perform the steps in sequence without interruptions, i.e. you will not see the dialog below):
12) You might be asked to sign in to Microsoft Account. However you might get directly to the next dialog if you came directly from Xbox Live and you kept your session open and you Microsoft account will be prepopulated in the form. If not, use the same account you created before and used to sign up on Xbox Live
Page | 13
13) Input your information to create an account and click on ‘’Continue to verify’’. Note that this email can be any email the user wants to
have as their DreamSpark account. If they wish to use the same as the Microsoft Account, this is also possible and convenient. No mapping will be required.
Page | 14
14) In the next page, student needs to choose ‘’Get verify through my school’’. In order for this to work, Microsoft need to have ALL the
domains (for students and teachers) used by the school when providing email addresses stored in our Academic Verification Engine. If your school is not listed, the school administrator can submit a request to our support at: https://www.dreamspark.com/Student/Support.aspx to ‘’Add a school domain to DreamSpark Academic Verification Engine’’. The administrator needs to provide the administrator name and email address, all the domains used by the school that they want to add, the city, region, state and country. Note however that in the meantime a student can still do a manual verification. If a student does not find the school, s/he can click on ‘’Don’t see your school?’’ in the drop-down list. This will bring up a more detailed search. If this still does not show any schools, s/he can click on ‘’Still cannot find a school?” and he will be brought to a form that where they are asked to attach a document as proof of their verification which will go to the DreamSpark Student Support Team. The student will then receive a mail
15) In the next steps, you need to actually input the email given to you by the school, since this is what is used to check against the school
domain we have on record.
Page | 18
16) They will then get a page with a message that a mail has been sent to their school email address. The email will contain an embedded
verification code that will bring them back to the ‘’Get Verified Now’’ page and allow them to complete verification using a verification code (option 2).
Page | 19
Step 4: Go to Xbox Live Indie Games portal to create your store account for free
17) Now go to: https://profile.create.msdn.com/en-US/Register.aspx and sign in using the same Microsoft Account you used to sign up in DreamSpark. It should actually be pre-populated if you are doing this soon after completing Step 3 above.
18) In the registration form, make sure to input again the same Microsoft Account as your email address, then select ‘’I am a student” and
click on Continue button.
Page | 21
Page | 22
19) You will now get access to the Xbox Indie Game portal since the system will have run a check against DreamSpark to confirm that your account is a DreamSpark verified account.
Page | 23
At this point you are set to start deploying your games to the consoled. These two topics can help you, although they have not yet been updated since App Hub got split: Connecting XNA to your console: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb975643.aspx (note that the ‘’Silver account’’ referred to in this topic is actually the Free Xbox Live account). Deploying a game to your console: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb203929.aspx
