A new Easter Egg has been discovered in the original Xbox's dashboard, nearly twenty years after the console's initial release. Microsoft's first Xbox, which launched back in November 2001, is known to contain many hidden secrets within its operating system.
Indeed, one such secret in the Xbox dashboard was discovered years ago. To initiate that Easter Egg, a player must press "Music" from the main menu and insert an audio CD. From the "Audio CD" menu, the player presses "Copy" before selecting "Copy" once again on the next screen. The player then selects "New Soundtrack." If everything is done correctly, a keyboard should come up with a space to name the soundtrack. Spelling out "<<Eggsβox>>" and selecting "Done" activates a credits screen that thanks the development team and lists the original Xbox developers.
The existence of the latest Easter Egg, as well as the steps needed to activate it, were leaked by an anonymous source to website Kotaku, who verified the source as an original Xbox developer. Reporter Alexandra Hall inquired as to why the source decided to leak this information now. Aside from believing that the Easter Egg would never be found since it hadn't been discovered in twenty years, the source said, "I also thought if I didn’t do it now it would never likely happen. It had been so long I couldn’t even remember the trigger!" The source had to verify that they still knew the trigger by trying out "several things" on their Xbox to be certain. Kotaku's video on how to activate the Easter Egg can be viewed below.
The steps to activate the new Easter Egg are very similar to the steps required to activate the older Easter Egg described earlier. Both are triggered by going through the process to rip a CD and entering a specific series of characters into the field. Therefore, players need only follow the steps outlined earlier to reach the "New Soundtrack" naming screen. From there, the phrase and obvious South Park reference "Timmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" must be entered in the field (it has twenty-six "y"s). Press "Done," wait for the CD to rip, then navigate back to the main menu. If the player then selects "Settings," scrolls down, and chooses "System Info," the text there will have changed to display the four names of the original Xbox Dashboard Team: Victor Blanco, Sakphong Chanbai, Bradford Christian, and Jim Helm.
Though this new Easter Egg isn't the first to be discovered on the original Xbox, it likely will not be the last. In May of last year, the source code for the original Xbox leaked online. Hackers who dive deeper into this code may discover another long-forgotten secret in the vein of this recent Easter Egg. In more concrete terms, Seamus Blackley, who is the designer of the original Xbox, revealed in 2017 that there was still an undiscovered Easter Egg on the original Xbox. Blackley confirmed to Kotaku that this new Easter Egg is not the one he was referring to in 2017. This means that after almost twenty years, the original Xbox still holds many mysteries waiting to be discovered.
Source: Kotaku, Kotaku/YouTube