> There are no fees to apply to ID@Xbox, to submit a game to certification, publish, or update your games. There is a very modest one-time cost associated with development for the Universal Windows Platform.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/id
It looks like the big costs are insurance and the ratings boards (but this post is 6 years old):
https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/30/launching-indie-game...
You still need to pay for ESRB ratings and other things.
The SDKs that are available for this program are also heavily limited it’s basically only for UWP compatible apps, and while they didn’t put it yet it looks like there will be further limitations down the line including ensuring full cross platform compatibility including with IOS and Android.
So yes if you build a game using their more limited SDK and implement all Xbox Live features they won’t take a fee other than dev account fees.
And we aren’t talking about indie devs we’re talking about fucking Epic Games.
I don't think it is too hard to make a regular game UWP compatible. Unity just lets you do that.