PS5 Development Kit eBay Listings Quickly Pulled From Auction Website

Earlier today, a pair of PlayStation 5 development kits reportedly appeared on eBay before being taken off the auction site within hours.

Objects-a DFI-D1000AA development kit and a DFI-T1000AA test kit-were initially Point by Twitter users Zuby Tech and iDCx1337, both of whom were able to extract images from the list before it disappeared. A screenshot from the eBay page indicates that both consoles managed to reach € 2,850 (approximately $ 3,373 USD) after 12 auctions.

While the test kit looks almost identical to the retail PlayStation 5 models (well, aside from the large TEST pad on the back, of course), the SDK images highlight the unique V-shaped construction used in preliminary patents. This thing is a beast, and even manages to resemble a car engine when positioned vertically. Two all-black DualSense controllers were also photographed for the short-lived eBay listing, contrasting with the more prominent two-tone color schemes of the device’s currently available designs.

eBay is usually full of auctions for retro dev kits and even illegal reproduction cartridges, or games that were produced by a third party without permission from the original publishers for use in consoles and handhelds. . With that in mind, it’s unclear what rule, if any, this auction broke. It’s also possible that eBay simply cooperated with a request from Sony, which obviously doesn’t want these things to be in the wild so soon after the PlayStation 5’s release, to remove the listing.

Kotaku contacted eBay for more information on the auction in question and why it was removed but did not receive a response until publication.

Manufacturers like Sony and Microsoft send game development kits to studios to use them, you guessed it, in game development. These machines are less fuel-efficient than retail consoles, with more processing power and more open operating systems to facilitate all of the technological wizardry needed to get games ready for sale. Test kits, on the other hand, are more of what you and I can get our hands on so studios can make sure their games are performing well enough for mass consumption.

Read more: Guy buys a PS4 development kit full of data from Closed Studio

However, some random people getting their hands on these PlayStation 5 kits do not guarantee that they will be able to use them for nefarious schemes. When a Reddit user bought a similar PlayStation 4 console from a 2016 auction now defunct Sleeping dogs developer United Front Games, built-in security measures prevented them from accessing the console’s 800 GB of data. The dang thing couldn’t even play retail playstation 4 games. It goes without saying that the consoles that appeared on eBay earlier today would have the same barriers.

Either way, it’s hard to dispute the cool factor of one of these kits from the game development world. Not to mention the obvious benefits of archiving video game history. Manufacturers don’t ship these machines to just anyone and it often takes years for them to reach collectors. It is my (perhaps naive) belief that the more people learn about how games are made, the more they will appreciate the tremendous amounts of work it takes to bring them out.