Man Finds Xbox 360 Dev Kit At Garage Sale With A Hidden Gem Game Inside

Even over 20 years after its launch, there are still surprises surrounding the Xbox 360. There are numerous hidden features Xbox 360 players should know about, and there are discoveries made now and then pertaining to the console's history. One that recently came to light stemmed from a garage sale of all places, where someone purchased what many might perceive as just an ordinary Xbox 360 for $5. This would be a solid deal on its own, but it's even better with the knowledge that this was an Xbox 360 development kit — one with some remarkable stuff within it for "Grand Theft Auto" enthusiasts.

Word of the discovery hit the Internet via the GTAForums, where user janmatant revealed their incredible $5 score to the community. The console itself is the classic "fat" Xbox 360 model that has an Xbox 360 XDK label on the back and features the developer-used operating system Xshell. The only thing on the hard drive was a copy of "Grand Theft Auto IV," specifically a 2007 pre-release version. That's to say that it differs greatly from the official release of the game that hit shelves in 2008, including things that were cut before release or were previously only seen sparingly in gameplay trailers and cutscenes.

Not only is an Xbox 360 for $5 an incredible deal, but the treasure trove of previously unknown or considered possibly lost "GTA IV" content is staggering. As the fandom has combed through the files, some pretty stellar discoveries have been made.

With this story coming to light, the files from this dev kit were dumped online to the Internet Archive for "Grand Theft Auto IV" fans to dig through. In the aforementioned GTAForums thread dedicated to the "GTA IV" beta, some pretty incredible finds were churned up shortly after the file dump. Environmental assets, unused character models, all kinds of textures, voice lines, vehicles, weapons, and more were revealed, but none of these were quite the biggest discovery of them all. That honor went to an unfinished mini-game mode centered around zombies.

Yes, the same year fellow gaming giant "Call of Duty" brought its zombies mode to life for the first time, the minds behind the "GTA" franchise sought to explore this horror theme. The "GTA IV" beta find revealed bloodied assets of hospital beds and corpses, as well as weapon and health pickups that would presumably be scattered around to aid players' survival. According to longtime Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij, however, this mode didn't get too far and was more a product of the "put zombies in everything" craze of the late 2000s into the early 2010s.

With "GTA VI" delayed yet again, this is all a nice bit of excitement to keep the fanbase engaged while the wait continues. Unfortunately, it seems like the fun might not last much longer.

As thrilling as it is to finally have so much new "GTA IV" material to sift through almost two decades after its release, such a high-profile story was bound to reach the ear of the folks at Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive. The two have built a collective reputation as particularly litigious and incredibly protective of their games, of what players do with them in terms of modding, and of how they're actually played. Therefore, it wouldn't be too surprising if they took legal action over this "GTA IV" discovery.

At the time of publication, the Internet Archive post for the dev kit file drop appears to have been removed, suggesting that Rockstar and Take-Two may have stepped in. Strangely, though, currently, no action has been taken against the GTAForums thread discussing all of the found materials, with no thread lock or post deletion. Neither Rockstar nor Take-Two has spoken on the matter, leaving some, like GTAForums user Glenni91, to theorize that perhaps the main issue wasn't the unreleased material, but putting a complete build of "GTA IV" onto the Archive, which would bring the situation into copyright-violating territory.

No matter where it ends up going from here, this "GTA IV" beta drop was a welcome surprise. All these years, franchise expansions, and console generations after its release, it's cool to see what the game could've been on top of what was ultimately offered.