Did Sonic 3 have music by Michael Jackson? Tweets from Yuji Naka indicate so

Michael Jackson's involvement with Sonic 3 has been a long-standing gaming rumor for fans of the series. The iconic late singer was not credited in any game version, and there were multiple speculations about why.

Although there has been no official confirmation regarding the same, the former Sonic Team lead Yuji Naka might have let slip that Michael Jackson indeed had a hand in the music for Sonic 3.

The conversation springs from the release of Sonic Origins, a video game compilation from SEGA which allows players to relive the classic gameplay of the first four platform games in the long-running series. For the remaster collection, a part of the Sonic 3 original soundtrack had to be replaced, wherein it was speculated that SEGA had run into licensing issues with Jackson's estate.

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Michael Jackson possibly did compose for Sonic 3

Yuji Naka began the conversation with him, wondering if the new collection title had the original soundtrack for Sonic 3 or if it had been changed. Upon realizing it was the latter, a surprised Naka commented by saying that it had indeed changed even though SEGA Official uses Michael Jackson's music.

He later clarified that by saying that SEGA Official uses Michael Jackson's music, which refers to the TikTok video the company released in celebration of the Speedster's 31st birthday, which had an MJ song. Naka further stated that he felt his words had been misunderstood, possibly because he did not speak English and was using a translation tool.

But the fact that he introduced a mention of Michael Jackson's music while discussing Sonic 3 was enough to send fans into a tizzy. It must be mentioned that Brad Buxer, Jackson's musical director, had long mentioned the late star's involvement with the video game project.

There can be two possible reasons why Jackson was not credited if he did indeed score for the title. While Buxer said that the singer was not happy with how the sound came to be, the child abuse allegations also surfaced around that time, which could have affected the company's decision.

Whatever the case, there have been voices on both sides, and it has remained a gaming myth.

Therefore, it was very significant when Naka's tweet mentioned MJ's music concerning Sonic 3. Instead of the original soundtrack, the Origins collection is utilizing new scores from composer Jun Senoue.

In a conversation with Eurogamer, creative officer Takashi Iizuka explained:

"When we're going back and trying to recreate all these games from 30 plus years ago, you get a lot of old data that's not really usable. And music was one of those things — we had to dig up the old DAT tapes to get the music that was on all these games, and Jun Senoue went in and had to recreate in a modern format the music that they could put on to Sonic 3 and Knuckles as a final product."

Yuji Naka's eventual backtrack on the subject prevents gamers from putting the rumor to rest. Yet, his mention of the same has been interpreted by many as an indication that the iconic singer did create music for the title.