Are Dev Kits entirely legal to own???

[Gemini-Phoenix]

You see Dev Kits and all sorts of prototype gaming equipment on eBay all the time. GameCube Dev Kits for example, or DreamCast GDR writers Etc...

But are they entirely legal to own?

What I mean is - Could you publicly announce that you own such equipment, or would someone (For example, Nintendo) be able to take action against you?

Obviously not ALL of this equipment has been legitimately aquired, and employees may have previously taken "A keepsake" from their previous employment, and then sold it on eBay at a later date...


Also, things like the "TEST" PS2, and the green / blue debug PLayStations - Are they 100% legal to own?


But then technically, importing consoles is sort of breaking some kind of law - Hence why companies like Sony Of America wouldn't ship me my PS2 across the Atlantic...


Things like this are a bit of a grey area to be honest.

[The_EniGma]

Indeed this is.


I remember a while back LLama tried to sell an xbox development kit and microsoft pulled it from ebay, YET debug kits are free to be sold there? I think the dev kits are licensed to the ppl who have recieved them but alot of people seem to have them anyway..

[PapaStu]

I think it would depend. I've got debuggers. What do they do? Let me play games without a lockout. Am I being all piratey with them? Nope. Do I have proto stuff that I can play on them? Yup. Do I have some japanese stuff I can play on em? Again yup. Then again I dont seen Sony coming after me for owning a few debuggers. I know that they might not necessarily be happy that they are owned by those in the general populous, but since I've paid for them, I do own them.

Is it my fault that Acclaim went belly up and someone legitimally purchased tons of this stuff and then sold it off? Nope, He legally owns them, and since I purhcased one from him, I legally own it.

I think that the companies are a bit more worried about the current gen stuff since that can lead to hacking systems and or even more game pirating than whats already happening. But again the stuff does go out of their hands once its sold/licensed to the individual companies that buy testers and the like from Sony or Microsoft.

[kevincure]

It's probably illegal for Acclaim or some developer to sell you a dev kit, since I'm sure they have a contract with Sony saying "don't resell this." That said, there's a legal principle that contracts don't apply to third parties. So afaik you, the average joe buying on ebay, are not bound by that contract and can own dev kits as you wish.

(If the dev kit you own was stolen by someone else, though, it's a different story).

[dj898]

who gives shat.. really...

[Ed Oscuro]

If you have a development kit with proprietary code that you have not been licensed to own...hmmm........................................ ...

Oh, I got it. YOU'RE BREAKING THE LAW. So is the group that sold it to you. There's no clause in there to allow for transfer of property. Now, someday nobody will care, probably, but right now Microsoft has a good reason not to allow those programs out into the wild.

[XxMe2NiKxX]

who gives shat.. really...

Obviously this person.

[Blur2040]

I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for owning dev hardware...then again...they don't like you rubbing it in their faces. Thats why a lot of those auctions will get pulled from eBay.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

So basically, it's like being given some promo games with "Not for resale on" and then reselling them anyway...

I suppose if, say, Acclaim went bust, they'd have to sell their assets to get back as much of the money they owed at the time - Including selling said dev kits and stuff like that

[Leo_A]

The not for resale on games doesn't apply to people who bought it in a store or through some promotion and then decide to sell it. Nintendo has no control over me deciding to sell my copy of the OoT bonus disc for the GC for example, its simply a guide for stores to use so they don't split up bundles and such, or sell things they aren't authorized to sell like demo carts back in the 16 bit days (Though Nintendo would then go and sell those to a vendor for resale as used copies).

[Gemini-Phoenix]

The not for resale on games doesn't apply to people who bought it in a store or through some promotion and then decide to sell it. Nintendo has no control over me deciding to sell my copy of the OoT bonus disc for the GC for example, its simply a guide for stores to use so they don't split up bundles and such, or sell things they aren't authorized to sell like demo carts back in the 16 bit days (Though Nintendo would then go and sell those to a vendor for resale as used copies).

I noticed something similar recently - Many stores were selling copies of Mario Kart DD with "Not for resale" on them (From the Mario Kart value console pak)

They must have been authorised by Nintendo to split these bundles, or possibly returned to Nintendo who then split them and redistributed them.


There are a lot of underhand practices such as this which go on in the game industry I notice...