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Today in Depressing Auctions: Want to Own the Last Remaining Assets of 38 Studios? [UPDATED]

All the equipment previously owned by the now-defunct developer is up for sale. Including Xbox 360 XDK units?

UPDATE: Joystiq grabbed a quote from Microsoft, and SURPRISE, they aren't exactly stoked about their property showing up in this auction.

"Xbox 360 Development Kits (XDK) are the property of Microsoft and are only licensed to authorized studios and may not be assigned or sold to any third party without the written consent of Microsoft," the company told Joystiq in a prepared statement. "We will be contacting the appropriate parties involved in the auction of 38 Studios' assets to remove the XDK units from the auction listing and to secure the return of the consoles to Microsoft."

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For sale: One video game developer, gently used.
For sale: One video game developer, gently used.

It's been a while since we heard much about the 38 Studios debacle, mostly because there's hardly anything left of 38 Studios to even talk about. Developers have moved onto new studios and projects, Curt Schilling has seemingly holed himself up in a as-yet-undiscovered anti-press bunker, and the state of Rhode Island has been culling through the whole mess, looking for ways to make its money back on the ill-conceived loan the state gave the studio.

One way is to apparently auction off the entire inventory of computers, desks, audio equipment, and consoles, among other things, that once belonged to 38. Auction site SJ Corio Company lists the entire kit and caboodle as going up in two separate auctions--one in Maryland and one in Rhode Island--on October 12 and October 23, respectively.

Most of the items up for auction are the typical stuff you'd find in an office auction. Lots of TVs, conference equipment, phones, security equipment, and whatnot. However, one odd little detail in the Maryland auction is the apparent inclusion of Xbox 360 XDK units. In case you were wondering, those are Xbox 360 development kits, which, uh, I don't think you're supposed to sell? My understanding had always been that, technically, those units are licensed to developers, but aren't actually owned by the developer. So that might be a slight issue.

Otherwise, this is just kind of a fitting, sad, bizarre end to what has been one of the more depressing stories in our industry over the last few years. I wish I had some funny, off-color remark to bring the mood up a bit here, but I don't. I'm just sad now. Sigh...

Alex Navarro on Google+