Coming across Easter eggs is one of the most fulfilling things in video games. There’s a slight sense of belonging you get when you understand a certain reference, or realise that you share similar interests with the developers. However, certain Easter eggs are so well hidden that you may not find them even after 20 years, like this one in the original 2001 Xbox.
An anonymous developer who worked on the Xbox informed Kotaku that there was a hidden Easter Egg in the Xbox Dashboard. They revealed a sequence of things you’d have to do in order to see a secret credits sequence.
“I didn’t really expect it to be found, not unless the source code leaked or somebody reverse-engineered the Dashboard,” the developer told Kotaku. “Its trigger was the same as the ‘main’ Easter egg so I knew it was possible. I figured somebody would have to leak it for it to be known.”
There’s a reason why this Easter egg has not been found in the past two decades, and that’s because the steps you have to follow are extremely complicated. So if you still have an original Xbox, bust it out and try it for yourself. You’d have to start off by going into the “Music” section and inserting an audio CD into the console; make sure it’s a short one, or else it will take more time. Next, from the Audio CD screen choose “Copy” twice, then “New Soundtrack”.
You then delete the default soundtrack title and replace it with Timmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! with the letter “y” written 26 times and ending with an exclamation mark. You’ll then hear the sound of your CD getting ripped; this will take some time. After that’s done, head to the “System Info” tab under “Settings”. Here you’ll see a new screen listing out the names of the “Xbox Dashboard Team.”
Considering how complicated these steps were, it doesn’t look like the team was hoping anyone would just stumble upon these credits.
“I decided to share now as it’s been 20 years, and I thought it would be cool if people knew this actually existed. I know many sites like to track these types of things and all the people on that list no longer work for Microsoft,” said the developer. “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! I had to connect the Xbox up and try out several things to be sure.”