XBOX 360 Xenon Alpha 2 Kit

Title

XBOX 360 Xenon Alpha 2 Kit

Description

Some of the earliest documentation of the Alpha XeDK dates back to October 2003 when Xerox contractor Michael Hanscom shared a picture of a truckload of PowerMac G5s arriving on Microsoft's Redmond campus. Hanscom was later fired for posting the photos to his online blog. The Alpha XeDK was used for development of early Xbox 360 titles including Crackdown, Condemned, Kameo and Full Auto. Development of these titles was later moved to Beta hardware and eventually, final XDK hardware before being released. The Alpha XeDK was used for all demos at E3 2005. Even though the final case design was being shown, all of the locked kiosk cabinets contained the PowerMac G5 Alpha XeDKs and wired controllers due to the lack of RF board. When Microsoft moved all development to the Beta XeDK, the Alpha XeDKs were resold to full time Microsoft employees for $300 USD with a limit of 1 per employee. Although these kits all had the Microsoft Game Studios stickers on them, most were wiped and reinstalled with Mac OS X for personal use.

More information on the Alpha 2 can be found on our dedicated XBOX 360, XenonWiki