$5 Garage Sale Xbox 360 Dev Kit Contains GTA IV Beta With Zombies And Cut Features
A user on the GTAForums, janmatant, was fortunate enough to come into possession of an Xbox 360 development kit that was once owned by Rockstar North, which is the studio that worked on GTA 4. The kicker is that they were able to get this piece of gaming history for a mere £5 at a “car boot sale.”
Image of 3d zombie model, by Olanov on GTAForums. Dev Kit image above by janmatant on GTAForums.
Because it’s a development kit the console came with a treasure trove of assets that wouldn’t normally be available to anyone outside the studio. Luckily for the community, janmatant generously dumped the entirety of the contents found on the console’s hard drive and posted it online before selling it.
The community immediately started to find and share game assets that didn’t make it into the game’s final release, including more evidence of a zombie game mode with a 3D model of a gurney entitled “zomb_hos_bed_2.” Another revelation is the discovery of several radio stations that also didn’t make the final cut, in addition to some of the songs that were going to be part of these stations.
While the beta version of GTA 4 found was estimated to be at about 95% complete and not possible to boot from, it didn’t take long for someone to try and combine it with a complete version in what's described as a “Frankenstein build.” This makes it possible to experience a lot of this content while playing the game using original hardware or emulation software such as Xenia.
It’s always great to see fan communities rally to make this kind of content more accessible, ensuring the complete preservation of important titles such as GTA 4.
