Yuji Naka Confirms That Michael Jackson Wrote Music For Sonic The Hedgehog 3 [Update] - GameSpot

In this (also translated) tweet, he noted, "I feel like I'm being misunderstood a lot." He also pointed to an official Sega TikTok video, which features Sonic and a Michael Jackson song.

As such, it seems he was not attempting to confirm Jackson's involvement in the Sonic 3 soundtrack, though he also doesn't deny the long-running rumor.

Original story: The late Michael Jackson's involvement in the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog 3's soundtrack has been a long-running rumor in gaming circles, and one that the co-creator of Sega's blue blur has confirmed.

With the release of Sonic Origins, a compilation of classic Sonic games for modern platforms, veteran game developer Yuji Naka commented on how Sonic the Hedgehog 3's original soundtrack was missing from the game.

"Oh my god, the music for Sonic 3 has changed, even though Sega Official uses Michael Jackson's music," Naka tweeted.

Oh my god, the music for Sonic 3 has changed, even though SEGA Official uses Michael Jackson's music.

"And music was one of those things --we had to dig up the old DAT tapes in order 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."