This Original Xbox Easter Egg Was Finally Uncovered After 20 Years
Finding easter eggs in video games is always a treat, but the joy of finding one on a console may be even better. For instance, fans were delighted when Sony revealed that the logo on PlayStation 2 consoles could be rotated. Now, it has been revealed that the original Xbox has been hiding an easter egg for two decades — and it was only discovered after one of the designers pointed it out.
An anonymous Microsoft developer led Kotaku to the "new" easter egg, which exists on the Xbox dashboard and displays a unique credits log called "Xbox Dashboard Team" under the System Info menu. So how do you get to this updated screen? First, you'll need an original Xbox and a CD (preferably a short one).
Put the CD in and then start the process of ripping the CD to the system's hard drive. You'll want to replace the album's title with "Timmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" — yes, the '!' is included, and yes, you'll need to spell that with a ridiculous 26 y's. As pointed out by Kotaku, an easy way to make sure you do this correctly is to fill the entire title with y's, then replace the last y with an exclamation point.
Once you do that, wait for the CD to finish copying and then head back to the System Info menu. The full credit screen for the Xbox Dashboard Team will be there.
Why Microsoft developers finally released the Xbox easter egg
According to Kotaku, the anonymous developer said that they simply felt it was time to give the information to the public: "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."
Additionally, the developer mentioned that they didn't even remember the code for the trick; they actually had to whip out the original Xbox and try a few things before landing on the correct one.
Despite the fact that the source code for the Xbox Dashboard was leaked in 2020, according to Kotaku, this easter egg still was never found before now. Thankfully, this is a pretty simple trick for hardcore fans to unlock for themselves — and it gives the team who designed the Dashboard a chance to get their names out there once again.