How much would you pay to spend a day with Microsoft's Xbox 360 development team? In this case, it's not a hypothetical question. A charity auction for the nonprofit Childhaven organization in Seattle is offering people the opportunity to bid on eBay for the right to spend a day with the team in Redmond.

The reserve is $250, which some avid gamers would no doubt pony up in a heartbeat. The auction ends on Nov. 9, and it will be interesting to see just how much people are willing to bid in the end. [Update: As noted by a reader in the comments, I was mistaken on this. The reserve is undisclosed, and considerably higher, judging from the level of bids that have yet to meet it. I've asked a Childhaven representative for more information.]

Update II: The reserve is $750, and it has now been met. This isn't included in the auction description, but Ernie Lou of Childhaven tells us that the winning bidder also gets an Xbox 360 signed by the development team.

"Have you, or your son or daughter, ever want to be a games developer, bringing to life the games we see and play today? Have you always wanted to see the behind the scenes workings of the games being developed for the Xbox 360?" reads the pitch on the auction listing. "This is your once in a lifetime experience as you could spend the day with a games artist, designer, coder, take a tour of the usability test labs, and see some of our hit games in our studios with the people who made them great!"

No word on whether the package includes a demo of Project Natal, the company's still-in-development motion-sensing control system, but it would hard to imagine Microsoft not showing that off to the winner.

To whoever wins the bidding, our suggestion is to combine the Microsoft visit with a stop by the nearby customer service center and mini-museum at the Nintendo of America headquarters a few blocks from Microsoft in Redmond -- thereby turning the whole thing into the ultimate game geek's dream trip.