Now's your chance to buy a massive Megabots battle mech
One man’s bankruptcy is another man’s battle mech.
Put on your helmet and grab your wallet. Bidding starts at $1.
If you've ever wanted to climb into a 15-ton battle mech, crank its 430-horsepower Corvette engine to life and fight a car with your giant chainsaw arms, now's your chance. MegaBots is filing for bankruptcy, and its 17-foot-tall robot battle champion, Eagle Prime, is for sale on eBay.
The shuttering robot combat entertainment startup is out of money, according to its co-founder Matt Oehrlein. In a video posted to MegaBots' YouTube on Wednesday, Oehrlein detailed Eagle Prime's specifications and discussed the difficulty of financially maintaining the company.
"I think that is a pretty clear sign that there's no longer an appetite -- or a mass market appetite -- for nation-on-nation giant robot fights," Oehrlein said.
"That said, I do think there could be technologies that could be developed in a giant robot sports league that could be re-applied to other industries like defense and material handling … I just don't think the MegaBots platforms are anywhere close to being useful for those applications right now."
Eagle Prime comes with a left arm claw attachment that appears large enough to throw an average-sized domestic washing machine; a giant drill attachment (only used once); a set of 500-pound steel knives; and a 6-inch double-barreled pneumatic cannon that may or may not work as it was used as a battering ram against a giant Japanese robot.
At time of publication, Eagle Prime had already commanded a high bid of $70,000 (about £56,655, AU$103,309). Bidding closes Oct. 3.
Eagle Prime comes with several arm attachments to assist with a variety of automotive needs.
Originally published Sept. 25.
Update, Sept. 26: Adds latest bid price.
Correction, Oct. 2 at 9:07 a.m.: Fixes the spelling of Matt Oehrlein's last name.