A seller on Ebay held an auction for a Dreamcast developers kit that contained source code and an alpha of Ecco 2, Sentinels of the Universe. Videos from the auction showed a totally different Ecco game that takes place where the previous left off. The GD-R used as a demo was not apart of the auction but was the center piece of a lot of debate in many gaming communities.

Criticisms of the videos legibility were never answered when the auction was pulled because of legal action from the successor of Appaloosa Interactive's claim over the property. Despite what was said the game is definitely legit, the seller had credible sources from which he obtained rare Sega Katana developers boxes.

...This procedure is not simple easy. Pending the negotiations (for the bankruptcy) members got a free hand but at the finish they withdrew all of earlier arrangement. That's why the second katana auction is closed and removed earlier.

The seller who is Hungarian made it apparent that he has friends who work for Appaloosas successor and decided to pull the auction early. He also disappointed the Ecco and Dreamcast communities with breaking his promise to release the GD-R with the alpha build of Ecco 2, Sentinels of the Universe to the public. The GD-R was obviously one manufactured by Sega to be used specifically for use with Dreamcast and compatible equipment, handwritten in a marker was what the disk contained.

The GD-R is something not easily duplicated, a technology in itself it can store twice the size of an average CD-ROM which compared to modern day DVD burners is minimal but for those days cost effective and cheap. The developers kit which appears to be a modified PC runs an older version of Windows with toolkits for creating Dreamcast executables. GD-ROM Discs cannot be read in a normal CD/DVD medium and requires special equipment to be read.

The seller according to his Ebay profile sold these developers kits before but this particular one was of special interest. Modification and forgery of the whole game in itself would be very time consuming for such a small audience. If this was just a hacked version of Ecco, Defender of the Future created by the developers for fun wouldn't that make it official technically?

The video demonstration starts off with a level select screen with six levels. The levels listed are Atlantis, Ancient City, Galleon and Port, Home of Narwhales, Hanging Spheres and Hanging Caverns. From what Chris the owner has said the sound, game play and graphics are very glitchy.

The video included with the auction shows off the level Atlantis that looks like the original Defender of the Futures Atlantis Lost. The only difference is the statue of Ecco the Dolphin next to the guardian and a few dolphins swimming around having a race.

The story as Chris gave about how the Ecco II tech-demo GD-ROM emerged is an interesting one. When Appaloosa shut down operations they threw out all of there systems - one of them containing source code and a playable demo build as well. Hopefully he will have a change of heart and release the GD-R otherwise let us hope we find another source.