PizzaStation 5 Development Pizza Kit sold for $6,500 — thinly-disguised Sony PS5 dev kit slips past Sony

The "Sony PS5 PizzaStation 5 Development Pizza Kit" sold on eBay.
The "Sony PS5 PizzaStation 5 Development Pizza Kit" sold on eBay. (Image credit: @consolevariations on Twitter)

Recently, user consolevariations on Twitter reported on the story of a Sony Playstation 5 development kit being sold as a thinly disguised PlayStation 5-themed pizza oven dubbed the "PizzaStation 5 Development Pizza Kit."

In console gaming, development kits are pieces of pre-release console hardware with added development features. Their release is usually strictly controlled—actually reselling a development kit from a console manufacturer is a surefire way to get developers or studios blocked, so it doesn't happen, especially not like this, though this clever disguise likely prevented automated systems from detecting the dev kit listing.

Of the details in the original development kit listing, the use of thin-crust frozen pizzas may not be the most amusing. Instead, one can't help but notice the custom spatula pictured with the unit, which features a classic PlayStation logo emblazoned just under the head of the spatula. With today's exchange rate in mind, this presentation ultimately earned the lister €6,050, or roughly ~ $6,500.

While this story is being circulated here and elsewhere across the Internet today, thanks to @consolevariations' find, there are some rumors that this may have happened as early as September of 2021. Unfortunately, we could not verify this or find the original listing, but it would make sense, considering how long the standard PS5 has been on the market.

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Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

  • bit_user
    This was a fun way to discuss console development kits and gave me a smile. Thanks for reporting, @TheyCallMeContra !

    I wish these console makers would open source their development kits, once the consoles finally go out of production, but I can see all sorts of reasons they'd never consider such a move. What a shame.
    Reply
  • isaacmeredith
    Im not trying to throw shade but really $6500 for a game console let alone one that heats up pizza is probably the most useless waste of money that i think I've ever heard of ....WOW
    Reply
  • bit_user
    isaacmeredith said:
    Im not trying to throw shade but really $6500 for a game console let alone one that heats up pizza is probably the most useless waste of money that i think I've ever heard of ....WOW
    It's a software development kit. You literally can't make PS5 games without it. That's basically why they're so expensive.
    Reply