Back in October 2019, an original Xbox debug kit appeared on eBay, eventually selling for the grand price of $1250. Why so expensive? The system wasn't only a 1st Gen debug kit, but came packaged with two unreleased games in the form of International Volleyball 2004 and platformer Geox.
Let's break this down. Basically, it appears the debug kit was sourced from a former developer studio (no surprises there), and according to the listing, it still works perfectly. That studio? We don't know for sure, but given that the PC version of International Volleyball 2004 was developed by AddGames Italia and the item location was listed as 'Roma, Italy', there's a good chance it came from there.
The other game on the system is a side-scrolling platformer called Geox, which as far as we're aware, never saw an official release on any platform. The listing also suggests the CD player works perfectly (and reads unsigned CDs), and also provides a video example in the form of BioWare classic Jade Empire.
The listing contains a bunch of images of the console itself as well as the games in action. In the notes, it confirms the system is a 1st Gen original Xbox debug console and explains what the original Xbox debug console was used for:
'Microsoft gave development companies debug units which had the same amount of RAM as the Xbox development PC, but allowing devs to transfer their game onto the harddrive and show others or beta-test on a pseudo Xbox before finally publishing on legitimate Xboxes'
If you want to check it out for yourself, you can still find the listing over at eBay. It's long since been sold, however, so we're not expecting this one to show up in the wild again any time soon. Are you impressed by the device? Can you shed any light on International Volleyball 2004 or Geox? Let us know below.
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[source ebay.co.uk]
Comments 2
Always interesting to see people uncover such finds and learning about "new" unreleased games or projects.
I do find it weird that the owner/YouTuber called both games Vaporware, seeing as they actually exist. It doesn't matter that they're unfinished, beta versions of games, they are actual products, and as such, by their very definition, definitely NOT Vaporware.
On a side note: those are some VERY amateurish videos. Low resolution, and I wish he would have used a fixed camera, instead of treating us to such jittery camera work.
I so would have bought this if I had that kind of $ to spend on a game console.
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