[book sliding on counter]
Game console boot screens have come a long way since when they started.
[Master System sounds]
But when CDs came along, things had to change dramatically.
There had to be a menu system so you could swap discs or perhaps play audio CDs.
[Mega CD music *JOYFUL*]
Now, in the days of the Mega CD this was a cheerful and happy experience; the music was
bursting with JOY.
But this seemed to change with the dawn of the Playstation.
The intro you were greeted with just instilled you with a sense of dread and unease.
[Playstation intro music]
[Dread inducing (perhaps)]
Now this wasn't a bad sense of dread, but it definitely left a sense of mystery about
what was about to happen, and this didn't get better, in fact, it got worse, and for
me it culminated with the Xbox's dashboard.
I'm here to tell you why...
[Creepy dashboard sounds]
The original Xbox, released in 2001 was a hench hunk of a machine.
It was vast and heavy compared to almost every other console we'd seen, but it was also somewhat
menacing.
A huge shadowy slab, unearthed in some archaeological dig, just waiting to unleash powers beyond
our comprehension.
That's not actually that far from the truth.
Compared to its peers, the graphics and sound of the Xbox were staggering, making it incredibly
easy to get sucked into whatever game world it threw at you.
But sometimes, when that was all too much, it would be relaxing to just boot up the Xbox
without a game, and bathe in the alien green of the original dashboard.
Those eerie unsettling sounds, provided a comforting sense of dread.
It was like an parallel alien world calling to you through time and space.
But for those who left their Xbox on, and woke up at 3am in the morning to terrifying
unidentified sounds, you know that this is just scratching the surface.
You see, the Xbox holds a secret.
In fact, it holds many secrets, and these secrets were enough to frighten the wits out
of both adults and children alike.
Of course, it helps if you've just woken up, perhaps in a drunken stuper, and all you have
is the glow of your Xbox, along with these strange, confusing sounds.
Along with the swirling, water like ambience, were seemingly sounds of squealing midnight
trains, distant sea creatures, creaking doors and strange alien voices.
All generated by the Xbox, as it sat, glowing in the corner, watching & judging you whilst
you slept.
It was a few years ago that Microsoft's Larry Hyrb (you know, that Major Nelson chap) revealed
that these sounds were actually modified Apollo mission conversations, which would randomly
mesh themselves into the Xbox ambient sound to frankly, scare the living cr*p out of you.
It's really like the backing track to a horror movie.
If you listen to the original recordings, they're not much better to be honest.
Well, not for me anyway.
I always get a feeling of eerie disconnect listening to transmissions like this.
These were people almost completely isolated from the rest of humanity.
Even though all turned out well, I find it really unsettling.
These public domain sounds can all be found on the hard drives of original units.
Although clearly, some aren't directly from the apollo missions.
Clearly this is straight out of Atari ST speech synthesis.
If that isn't produced by a Yamaha AY sound chip, then I'll eat my hat.
Although the words may be transcribed from an Apollo communication.
It's a little hard to make them out, but I'm getting...
"Do you read?
Do you read?" and there's a "seven" there.
So it clearly sounds like a communication put through speech synthesis.
Obviously the intention here, was to make the Xbox seem like alien technology, especially
tied with the extensive green colour scheme.... and for me, it bloody worked.
I've heard some people say that it was worse with surround sound on.
Like it created a proper haunted house show.
Whilst others claim that headphones were the worst for receiving these foreign sounds.
Well, I thought I'd run my own test, and
just leave an Xbox running in the office, to see what horrors lay in wait.
Ending on a jump scare.
That's
a little cliche isn't it?
Handy then that there are some other videos here you can click, from previous halloweens.
HAVE TERRIFYING EVENING.
MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA *fades out*
Good lord.