Learn: Home » Getting Surround Sound from the GameCube™, PlayStation®2, and Xbox™
Please note, this article doesn't cover the current generation of video game consoles. Check out our latest article to get surround sound tips for the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii.
 Microsoft's Xbox system offers Dolby Digital surround sound capability. |
Arrows whistle across the room! A racecar zooms past! A door slams behind you!
There's no question — movies are much more fun to watch when they're supported by a great soundtrack and great effects, reproduced over a super surround sound system. In the same way, playing video games, with their increasingly sophisticated processing and sound, becomes an incredibly immersive experience — if they're connected to a good surround sound system.
Yes, video games. I'm talking specifically about the three competing game systems (Nintendo® GameCube™, Sony PlayStation® 2, and Microsoft® Xbox™), and how they can be made into a part of your home theater system.
If you're thinking, "Video games are for kids! They don't need any of that fancy stuff," think again. Video games aren't just for kids. Let's face it, they've never been just for kids. In the video arcades of the 1980s, children and adults jostled for places at the Pac-Man™ and Frogger™ machines. And the more sophisticated games have gotten since then, the more intrigued game-loving kids and adults have been.
I'll touch on the surround sound capabilities now available from these games. (There's great video quality, too, but that's a big topic all its own.) I'll also offer a quick primer on what you need to achieve this kind of sound.
Surround sound for a game system
I'm a rarity in my circle of friends: a woman in her late twenties who likes playing video games. After an early stint with Atari, my experience is largely with Nintendo systems: I worked my way from original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) to SuperNintendo® to N64® to today's GameCube. Despite my affection for Nintendo, I'm not blindly partisan; there are great games to be played on the old Sega® systems, and the present-day PlayStation 2 and Xbox as well.
As a result of all those years of game-playing, I've seen the evolution from simple, unsophisticated beeps and buzzes, to enveloping, dramatic theme music with innumerable lifelike sound effects. Sony PlayStation games have made the same kind of shifts as Nintendo games. And Xbox, though the newest system, came into the market with some of the most serious sound processing around.
You don't really get the benefit of this great audio, though, when you listen through the speakers on your TV set. You may get a hint of stereo separation, but that's about it. But with a surround sound setup of good-quality speakers, well — picture this:
- You're moving stealthily through a dense patch of jungle. You can't see very far in front of you, and you've been there for hours. Invisible birds are chattering noisily all around. A frog croaks unexpectedly on your right, and you jump. Then, you detect the faintest of rustlings behind you, to your left. Another monkey swinging across your path? No — the sounds grow louder, and you wheel, just in time to face the snarling enemy warrior that has tried to ambush you!
Surround sound means that in Xbox's acclaimed Halo™, bullets whiz past you, and grenades explode right behind you, while you listen to the astonished shouts of the enemy forces as they struggle to escape. In Nintendo's ground-breaking Legend of Zelda®: The Wind Waker™, you can hear monsters approaching from out of sight, or track down a violin-playing character by simply following the music. With surround sound, you can hear a plane flying overhead while you tee off, or the crowd's hush turn into cheers all around you, during Tiger Woods PGA Tour® 2003 on PlayStation 2.
