It’s amazing what retro classics you can find at a flea market or car boot sale, especially when you just happen upon lost Michael Jackson Sega game footage that people had forever given up hope of seeing ever again.
Yeah, just soak that up for a second!
We all know about the relationship that Sony and Michael Jackson had. Moonwalker is one of the best Sega Genesis games of all time, and now that we’ve finally had our suspicions confirmed about his involvement in writing the music for Sonic 3, his status as a gaming legend has been fully cemented into the annals of history.
Not that he wasn’t already a legend in his own right, obviously… but this trumps the whole music thing.
But his work in the video game industry has taken yet another exciting turn thanks to a Sega fan rummaging around at a market and happening upon the greatest find of his life.
But what was that special find?
Enter Captain Jackson and his interstellar performance for Scramble Training, a motion simulator fame on the Sega AS-1!
Go Moonwalking With Captain Jackson In Scramble Training!
Ok, you can’t really go moonwalking, but I had to cram a song in there somewhere.
What is Scramble Training, and what the heck is the AS-1?
Well, let’s start with the AS-1 first. It stands for Advanced System 1 and was a simulator module players would climb into before experiencing a space-sim game called Scramble Training.
As you can see from the picture below, this thing was pretty big. It’s not something that you could have put into your living room, which means the only place gamers could get into the action was at a nearby SegaWorld.
Everything we’ve ever known about this lost Michael Jackson Sega game has come from footage taken by excited fans in the 90s. The 90s wasn’t exactly known for state-of-the-art portable filming tech, however, which is why so many people never knew this game existed.
This miraculous lost Michael Jackson Sega game footage came to our attention via collector Ben Bizley from Hampshire, UK. After meeting up with a retro gaming trader who had acquired some sweet Sega memorabilia from an old Sega employee, he came across a Fuji Film D2 tape titled ‘AS-1 M. Jackson Ver.’.
£300 later (that’s about $360 for any US readers), and the tape passed into Ben’s hands.
‘M. Jackson’ could only be one person, and thankfully Ben’s purchase wasn’t ‘bad’ or ‘dangerous’, but an absolute ‘thriller’.
Yeah, I hate myself for those jokes.
Discovering Jackson’s Long Lost Game Footage
Taking to Facebook, Bizley reached out to other enthusiasts who identified the tape first as a piece of AS-1 history before confirming it as the Scramble Training game footage Sega recorded with MJ.
After sending the footage to be digitised, the whole world can now enjoy Captain Jackson’s foray into the stars and sit back as he guides them through the Scramble Training game.
This find is monumental, and Bizley knows he’s got something special on his hands that someone is going to pay a lot of money for.
We’re all about the preservation of retro gaming here at Retro Dodo, whether it be games, consoles, or just general memorabilia. Bizley finding this tape has brought game footage that many of us would never have seen to light, and now it’s on YouTube for MJ and Sega fans alike to marvel over forevermore.
Would you have conquered MJ’s scramble training? Reckon you had what it took to wow Captain Jackson? Let us know over on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!
Check out more lost Sega gear like this Rare Sega Arcade Cabinet found in a field!
Seb Santabarbara has bought every Nintendo console that has ever been released in his 33 years on Planet Earth. His favourite game franchise is Zelda, and he’s patiently waiting for Banjo-Kazooie to come back to the fold. When he’s not playing games, he’s travelling the world in his self-converted camper van.
