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XNA Game Studio Express Xbox 360 Options Page

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This page in the Options dialog box lets you make one or more Xbox 360 consoles available for deployment of your games. This topic includes the following sections.

  • Adding an Xbox 360 Console to the List of Consoles Available for Deployment
  • Specifying the Active Console
  • Removing an Xbox 360 Console
  • Troubleshooting Your Connection

To access the XNA Game Studio Express Xbox 360 Options page, click Options on the Tools menu and then click XNA Game Studio Express at the bottom of the list in the left-hand pane of the Options dialog box. The XNA Game Studio Express Xbox 360 Options page is displayed in the right-hand pane of the Options dialog box.

Note

If the XNA Game Studio Express Xbox 360 Options page is not visible, check the Show all settings check box.

Adding an Xbox 360 Console to the List of Consoles Available for Deployment

You add a console to the list of available consoles by establishing a connection between it and your computer. This involves four basic steps, carried out alternately on the console and your computer.

  1. Generate a key on the console.
  2. Enter that key manually into XNA Game Studio Express on your computer.
  3. Prepare the console to connect.
  4. Initiate the connection in XNA Game Studio Express on your computer.

The procedure below walks you through these steps in detail. Before starting the process, however, you must already have:

  • Purchased an XNA Creators Club membership from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
  • Installed XNA Game Launcher on the console.
  • Signed in to Xbox LIVE with an Xbox 360 gamer profile associated with your XNA Creators Club membership.
  • Started XNA Game Launcher. (The connection to Xbox LIVE must remain active throughout this session; otherwise, XNA Game Launcher will close.)

For more information, see Connecting to Your Xbox 360 Console with XNA Game Studio Express.

To set up the connection between your computer and console

On your Xbox 360 console:

  1. From the Xbox Dashboard, select the Games tab.

  2. Select Demos and More from the item list and press the A controller button.

  3. Select XNA Game Launcher and press the A controller button.

  4. Select Launch and press the A controller button. This displays the XNA Game Launcher screen.

  5. Select Settings and press the A controller button.

  6. Select Generate Connection Key and press the A controller button.

  7. Carefully write down the generated key in case you make a mistake copying it into XNA Game Studio Express. It can be somewhat hard to read the key on a standard television screen, so be sure to distinguish between numbers and letters that are easy to confuse.

    • The number "1" has a small tick at its top left, whereas the capital letter "I" does not.
    • The number "8" does not have a straight side at the left, whereas the capital letter "B" does.
    • The number "3" has no straight side at the left, whereas the capital letter "B" does.

On your computer:

  1. Open XNA Game Studio Express.

  2. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  3. If XNA Game Studio Express is not visible at the bottom of the left-hand pane in the Options dialog, check the Show All Settings check box.

  4. Select Xbox 360 under XNA Game Studio Express.

  5. Click Add in the option page that appears in the right pane of the dialog.

  6. In the Xbox 360 Name text box, enter a friendly name to identify the console associated with the connection key. This name is for your convenience and does not need to match any information on the Xbox 360 console.

  7. Carefully type the connection key from the Xbox 360 console into the Connection Key text box, and check to make sure that the key exactly matches the one displayed on your console screen.

    WAIT! Don't press the Connect button yet.

On your Xbox 360 console:

  1. Once you are sure that the two keys exactly match, select Accept new key on the console and press the A controller button.
  2. Press B to return to the XNA Game Launcher main page.
  3. Select Connect to Computer and press the A controller button. The console will go into a Waiting for connection mode.

On your computer:

  1. Now, once the console is "Waiting for a connection," press the Connect button in the Add Xbox 360 dialog. If the connection is established properly, the dialog displays a short message telling you so, and the Ok button is enabled. Click the Ok button, and from now on your computer and your console can connect to each other easily.

  2. If more than one console is now listed, select the one you want to use next for deploying a game and click the Active button.

    If the connection fails, make a careful note of the error message displayed at the bottom of the Add Xbox 360 dialog. The most common connection problem results from copying the key incorrectly from the console to XNA Game Studio Express, but firewall and other network problems can also cause a connection to fail. Making note of the message displayed at the bottom of the Add Xbox 360 dialog box can help you or a technician diagnose the cause of the connection failure, if it did not result from mismatching keys. For more information about troubleshooting a failed connection, see the troubleshooting section below.

Specifying the Active Console

Only one console is active at a time out of the list of available consoles. The current active console is shared by all instances of XNA Game Studio Express that are currently running, and it is a per-user setting, which means that multiple users can have different active consoles on the same development computer.

If the console list contains only one console, that one is automatically active.

If there are multiple console connections listed in the XNA Game Studio Express options pane, and you want to change the one that is active, select the one you want to make active from the list and then click the Active button.

Removing an Xbox 360 Console

To remove an Xbox 360 console from the deployment list, select it in the list and then click the Remove button.

Troubleshooting Your Connection

If you are unable to successfully establish a connection between your computer and your Xbox 360 console, the following tips might help.

Be sure your console is configured correctly

  • You will need an XNA Creators Club membership, which you can purchase from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
  • XNA Game Launcher must be installed on the console.
  • You should be signed in to Xbox LIVE with an Xbox 360 gamer profile associated with your XNA Creators Club membership.
  • XNA Game Launcher must be running on the console. This means the connection to Xbox LIVE must remain active; otherwise, XNA Game Launcher closes.

Use a key that has just been generated

The key generated by the console on the Connection Key page is good only for connecting one computer to one console under one user profile.

A key is valid until a computer connects to the Xbox 360 using that key, or until a new key is generated by the console. For example, if you delete a console from the list of consoles available for deployment, you cannot add it back again using the same key. Instead, you must generate a new key on the console and use that new key to connect the computer to the console.

You can establish only one connection listing at a time for a given gamer profile

If multiple computers connect to one Xbox, as often happens in homes, they cannot use the same gamer profile to create simultaneous connections.

Similarly, if a computer has several user logins, only one of the users can form a connection with a console using a given gamer profile.

  • To establish multiple persistent connections to one console from multiple computers, you must specify a separate Xbox 360 gamer profile on the Xbox 360 console for each of the computers. When the console is signed in with the profile corresponding to a particular computer, the console can generate a connection key to establish a persistent connection with that computer. Subsequently, whenever signed in with the same profile, the console can connect again with that computer and receive deployments from it. Note that all of the gamer profiles in question must be members of the XNA Creators Club.

    Alternatively, the different computers can share a single gamer profile one by one. Every time a different computer needs to connect, it can delete any previous connection and establish a new one, using a new key and the common gamer profile. There is no limit to the number of times you can create new keys and establish new connections.

  • The same thing is true of establishing multiple persistent connections to one console from multiple user accounts on a single computer: For each user account on the computer, specify a separate Xbox 360 gamer profile on the Xbox 360 console. When the console is signed in with the profile corresponding to a particular user account, the console can generate a connection key to establish a persistent connection with that account on the computer. Subsequently, whenever the console is signed in with that profile and that user is also signed in on the computer, the console can connect and receive deployments. Note that each of the gamer profiles in question must be members of the XNA Creators Club.

    Again, different users can also share a single gamer profile serially, one after the other, by deleting any previous connection and establishing a new one every time a different user needs to connect, since there is no limit to the number of times new keys may be created and new connections established.

Your connection keys might have been modified

If a connection worked once and is now failing, the connection key for the console may have been changed accidentally. If this is the problem, you can fix it simply by adding a new connection, using a new key.

The computer and the console must be on the same subnet

If the computer and Xbox 360 are on different subnets, they cannot establish a connection properly. Typically, both machines should be connected to the same hub or router. It is best not to use a wireless connection, because a weak or noisy signal can make connection and deployment fail.

To determine whether your computer and console are on the same subnet, you can do the following:

  1. On your computer, open a command window (click Start, and then click All Programs, Accessories, and Command Prompt). At the command prompt, type ipconfig and press ENTER. Make note of both the IP address and of the subnet mask in the configuration listing that appears.
  2. On the console, go to the System blade of the Xbox Dashboard, select Network Settings and then Edit Settings. Again make note of the IP address and subnet mask.

Compare the settings to make sure that the computer and console are on the same subnet.

Check for firewall interference

In some cases, your firewall could be blocking communication between your computer and the Xbox 360 console. Verify that the following conditions have been met.

  • The xnatrans.exe executable is not blocked on the computer.
  • Incoming communication for UDP ports 3825 and 3835 is not blocked.
  • Outgoing communication for UDP port 1000 is not blocked.
  • Outgoing communication for TCP port 1001 is not blocked.

See Third-Party Firewall Settings for additional details.

See Also

Connecting to Your Xbox 360 Console with XNA Game Studio Express
Developing Xbox 360 Games