Yuji Naka confirms Michael Jackson wrote music for Sonic 3

It has long been a gaming myth that Michael Jackson wrote music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, leading to rumors as to which parts of the soundtrack he was involved in.

Now, Sonic creator Yuji Naka has confirmed that Michael Jackson did write music for the game.

“Sonic Origins Sonic 3 has a different song?” she tweeted out of the blue. “OMG, Sonic 3’s music has changed, even though Sega Official uses Michael Jackson’s music.”

It was confirmed that Sonic Origins, the new Sonic game compilation, does not use the original soundtrack. This was suspected to be due to ongoing royalty speculation with the Jackson estate.

Instead, the compilation uses new arrangements by composer Jun Senoue.

Creative director Takashi Iizuka confirmed to Eurogamer: “When we go back and try to recreate all these games from over 30 years ago, you get a lot of old data that isn’t really usable. And music was one of those things. we had to dig up the old DAT tapes to get the music that was in all these games, and Jun Senoue came in and had to recreate in a modern format the music that they could put into Sonic 3 and Knuckles as a final product.”

Naka even tweeted a picture taken of Jackson’s house when the team visited. “He’s pretty washed out,” he admits. “I miss him”.

Sega reportedly cut Jackson from Sonic 3 following allegations of child abuse, though fans believe the music he composed remains in the original version of the game and was worked on by Jackson’s producers.

Naka’s tweet is a major admission in this long-running rumor.