Unseen photos of Micheal Jackson, made for an unreleased Sega game, surfaced from a developer interview

Sega fans will know that the infamous King of Pop Micheal Jackson had quite the interesting history with Sega during the 90’s, but this may be something many of you weren’t privy to.

In a recent interview with designer Kazunori Sasaki with News Post-Seven, as reported on by MJ Vibe, Sasaki-san spoke about how he met with Jackson during his HIStory World Tour stop in Japan in December 1996 to do some photography and motion capture work for an unreleased game, presumably a new entry in Sega’s Digital Dance Mix game series for Saturn. The above photos of Jackson were taken during that shoot and were never publicly shown before. (The Ghost album cover has been available to the public for many years, but News Post-Seven just attached it to the pictures, for some reason.)

For those unaware, Digital Dance Mix was a planned series of rhythm games with each entry themed after a single popular singer. However, only one game in that planned series ended up releasing exclusively in Japan, based around the Japanese pop singer Namie Amuro. Apparently, she was popular enough to be known as the “Queen of J-Pop“, so she and Jackson may have been equals, depending on who you ask.

For more info from the interview, be sure to moonwalk right past the break.

In the interview, Sasaki-san recalled how the motion capture session with Jackson lasted about an hour. During this time, they also ran a photoshoot of Jackson from different angles to aid in designing a 3D model of him for the game.

Sasaki was requested to meet with Jackson in a dimly lit basement room, where he appeared wearing a black mask. Sasaki presumes that this may have been either to hide his face from paparazzi or regular citizens or because of the plastic surgery he may have been getting at the time or a mix of both. He was feeling a tension that could be cut with a knife, but he began to feel more relaxed when he actually saw Jackson smiling and putting on a familiar, friendly air the entire day. He was also surprised to see Jackson had brought over 50 pieces of clothing making up many of the costumes he wore for his many tours and music videos, all likely for him to wear within the game.

Sasaki also recalls that he requested Jackson to make the faces he makes during his many signature exclamations from his songs (DAH!, A-Oh!, Ahh!), but for some odd reason, Jackson denied ever making those sounds when he sang, despite many famous examples of the contrary. In the end, Sasaki couldn’t get him to admit that he really did make any of those sounds and decided to just edit the associated facial expressions onto his model himself with Photoshop. Sasaki thinks Jackson may have been too shy or too embarrassed to own up to his own “Micheal Jackson-isms”.

During this mo-cap session, Sasaki, who is fluent in English, also had a friendly conversation with Jackson about their hair and shoes. Jackson complimented his hair and shoes, to which Sasaki suggested that Jackson try styling his own hair like his and informed him that his shoes came from Ameyoko in Ueno, in case Jackson wanted to buy a pair for himself. On both suggestions, Jackson said he would think about it. Sasaki couldn’t help but imagine the commotion that would’ve occurred there once the public had noticed Jackson.

After the shoot was done, Sasaki noticed four different fedoras belonging to Jackson on a desk and asked Jackson’s stylist if he could have one of them. Surprisingly, the stylist and Jackson agreed. Sasaki proudly showed off his signed fedora in photos during his interview. Unfortunately for Sasaki, his head is too big for him to put the fedora on.

The majority of the info above comes from News Post-Seven’s article, translated to English.

There was no word on why the planned Digital Dance Mix game featuring Micheal Jackson was cancelled or what became of the 3D modeling work that was made after this fateful day. Who knows? Maybe at least some of it was repurposed to create or animate Space Micheal for Space Channel 5 years later? Or maybe it’s for a completely different unreleased project we’ve never heard of before? We hope to find out more and report it to you right here on SegaBits someday.

However, it’s worth mentioning that Sasaki didn’t outright mention Digital Dance Mix as the game he was most certainly working on or the game he met with Jackson for. We do know that such a game was already in development though, especially after a twitter user by the name of @v_SUPERFLY_v highlighted this fact in December 2024. We’re just making an educated guess that this is the game they were working with Jackson for, as the original Digital Dance Mix with Namie Amuro released to retail only a month after that photoshoot took place.

いにしえの今日＝1996年12月18日
【マイケル、SEGAで謎のゲーム撮影】

マイケル・ジャクソンは羽田のセガ本社に夕方～22時まで滞在し、撮影。
翌月 第1弾安室奈美恵さん版の発売を控えていた『Digital Dance MIX』(ｾｶﾞｻﾀｰﾝ) のマイケル版の撮影でした🎮

が
その後の情報は一切なく今に至る😭 pic.twitter.com/qDGRSaxS0i

— 𓅫 Lah 𓅫 (@v_SUPERFLY_v) December 17, 2024

What do you all think about this previously unknown HIStory? Would you have been intrigued to see a Micheal Jackson game like this? Are you at all familiar with Digital Dance Mix? Are you a fan of Sega’s other games featuring the dearly departed pop star? Do you know how to moonwalk? (I do. It’s easier than you’d think.) Lets hear all about it in the comments below.

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