I use UE4 for realtime TV applications. I’ve often got to go to meetings to give demos, and set up clients with demo applications for testing and the like.
I do all of my work on my PC which is pretty highly specced, but often have to drag my PC around London, in and out of studios and the like. I’ve got some meetings in Spain coming up and i’d love to get all of my stuff working on a console or something. Ideally I suppose would be an XboxOne or PS4 but i’m all too aware that i’m unlikely to get developer access to one of these devices. I’ve been thinking about the new AppleTV4k (I already have an nVidia Shield TV but I can’t quite get it working well enough with my software).
I have heard that you can do some indie style developing on the XBox One - does anyone have any experience of that? Is it a very limited setup?
I’d love for some console devs to weigh in here! Quite simply - what’s the best console I can develop for free* on (I have an apple developers account).
Developing for Xbox without a dev kit requires the UWP (Universal Windows Platform) branch, and using UWP restricts the amount of power you have access to with the console (not to mention the Xbox One isn’t super powerful in the first place)
What can work better is to get a gaming laptop, something with a GTX 1060 or a GTX 1080 will work very well and be easy to transport. I’ve got the Razer Blade and I can do mobile Oculus VR demos
I’ve thought about that (and i’d love a Razer Blade) but I really need to be able to leave a device with people for testing. I think i’m probably going to give the new AppleTV a try - I don’t know which is better though really between Vulcan running on a Shield or Metal on the new AppleTV.
I’d also suggest a laptop. Your going to find that developing for XB1 or PS4 is probably going to cost you the same, if not more, then a great laptop that’d run the game just as well, if not better out of the box. Like darthviper said, you’d also be able to do things like VR if you ever chose to do so (more easily, anyway).