OpenZDK, "First True Hack" for Zune Released

"While the XNA game development platform aims to provide a framework that makes game development accessible to the masses, on the Zune this translates to no 3D, no Internet access, and a performance penalty of around an order of magnitude - all when the hardware is right there. That's about to change. Through the work of myself as well as Netrix, Nurta, and the rest of the ZuneBoards Development Front, all Zune models, including the Zune HD, have been hacked. The first true hack available for the Zune, this makes it possible to, for the first time, run applications directly on top of the Zune firmware, with full access to everything XNA withheld before. The limitations of XNA are now no limitations at all."

It's been a long time coming, but it seems Zune's finally got a real hack to call its own. Details are sparse at the moment, but it looks like the ZuneBoards Development team have managed to skirt a number of the restrictions imposed by the sandboxed XNA framework allowing homebrew games to run as first class citizens like their Microsoft-developed counterparts. This means better web access, stronger 3D APIs, and hopefully no device restarting on application exit. There's also talk of an app store similar to iPhone Jailbreak's Cydia app in the works. For now, the release is mostly aimed at developers with a knowledge of C++ and OpenGL (no C# or XNA here), but users can test out the exploit tool now too. Hit up the read link for more information. Here's hoping we start to see some mind-blowing apps soon enough.