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Sandboxes

Sandboxes are isolated environments for you to test features in while developing without exposing them to any other environment, including the retail environment that users see. You can create sandboxes in Partner Center, and change which sandbox you’re currently in on your machine with the XBOX services PC Sandbox Switcher (XblPCSandbox.exe). Each sandbox can have different achievements, stats, leaderboards, and other information assigned to it that won’t affect other sandboxes. They can be extremely helpful to test different features when developing. For more information, see XBOX services Sandboxes overview.

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Event-based achievements and stats

In addition to the more manually tracked title-managed achievements and stats system that exists in the XBOX Game Development Kit (GDK), and more closely resembles the system that Steamworks uses, the XBOX Game Development Kit (GDK) also has a telemetry-based system for tracking stats and achievement progress. It’s known as event-based achievements and stats. This system allows you to send information about actions that a user takes and lets the API handle calculations and follow-up actions, rather than making this the responsibility of the game’s code.

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XBOX Play Anywhere

Because the XBOX Game Development Kit (GDK) is used across console and PC games, integrating features on both platforms can enable the XBOX Play Anywhere capability for your game. Games with XBOX Play Anywhere can be accessed by the same user on both console and PC, with their data shared across the two platforms.
Last modified on August 20, 2026

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Steam porting guide overviewPort from SteamConceptual differences between the GDK and SteamworksLeaderboardsPort Steam Cloud storage to the XBOX GDK