[XBOX] Development System DVT-4 has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have an XBOX DVT-4. This is a prototype unit used within Microsoft for various testing issues. The system is dated August 2001 4 months prior to the XBOX launch in North America. It's rather noticeable about the height difference in the prototype, I believe there is an extra board above the DVD-ROM and HDD with a few different functions, like DVD-ROM Emulator etc, I'm not 100% on that, and I don't plan to open the system at all.

Being in Australia, I had to wait for a 220v-240v system. I got my DVT-4 from the UK so this was no problem. While communicating with the person I bought it, I was told there was nothing on the Hard Disk apart from the normal default XBEs. I mainly wanted the system for collection purposes, otherwise if it had BETA content it would cost me a lung to buy.

I believe the unit was from Electronic Arts, or as we know them today EA Games. I gathered this by the name of the system 'lego-xbox' and secondly the video file left on the unit was from Bionicle, that's only a suspicion though.

Under the unit two words which lights up the room "Prototype" with nice messages saying no distribution. Enlarge the image to read them, it's quite interesting :p

Well that's enough for me, more games, and systems to come during the week. See you there!

A look at different XBOX Development Kits

Hi gamers!

XBOX has really been sticking to me recently, it's a very interesting system and some of it's versions are very cool to look at. It's (to me) always been the biggest system and takes a lot of abuse. There are systems that the general public haven't *ever* seen before, of course these would be the development and debug kits that are rented out to game developing companies.

This unit I'm about to show you is the DVT-4 unit, it's a prototype, Microsoft Asset development kit rolls right of your tongue. Gamers out there thought the public XBOX was big, just wait till you see this.

It's a little taller at the top mainly for the extra outputs/inputs at the back, possibly due to on the fly debugging, which you'll see below.
I'm always on the look out for one, and I've come across a few. They go for a ball park figure of $350-$400, so just a little more than a Playstation 3 to today's standards. One day, I'll get my hands on one it's a great piece of 128-bit history. Don't you think?

Next we have an Alpha Tower XBOX development system, which is basic looks like an ordinary PC. It's not at all and everything is highly custom. People in the past have tried to create one from scratch from "off-the-shelf" parts, of course without the custom BIOS and CPU it just wouldn't work. Yes, this one is also a beast!

Alpha II and XBOX Debug Kit box.

Images from ASSEMbler