In honor of The Gloved One's passing, Microsoft was giving away free downloads of his classic music video, "Thriller," over the weekend. Over the 48-hour span, over 50,000 people downloaded the video.
That's pretty awesome, and it was a neat idea that Microsoft was able to pull this off with such short notice, but I'm a little surprised at the lack of "Thriller" interest. After all, Microsoft has around 20 million Xbox Live subscribers, so 50K works out to just 0.25% of the subscription base. C'mon people, I know Vincent Price is scary but you really gotta do your part!
Michael Jackson's video game contributions were almost universally under the banner of SEGA, so I thought it might be prudent to see how the company feels about his passing. SEGA sent along this statement to Multiplayer:
"We here at SEGA were very sad to hear about the passing of Michael Jackson. He was a true music legend whose songs touched each of us at some point in our lives. We are proud to have worked with him and included his music in some of our most well-remembered games and are sure that his genius will live on through his great body of work. We have no doubt that future generations will be moonwalking to all his greatest hits."
Although Michael Jackson's video game contributions weren't quite as numerous as his musical contributions, the resounding response from gamers after his sudden death has been a fond remembrance of "Moonwalker," the Sega video game. Digging through the MTV archives, we were able to uncover an ancient commercial for the game, which you can check out here.
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Shocking news today, as Michael Jackson has passed away from a cardiac arrest. While his contributions to the music world are almost too numerous to count, but he also left his mark on video games in a few select, but memorable, titles.
Moonwalker
There were a few versions of "Moonwalker" on a variety of platforms (from the arcades to the Sega Genesis), but the basic premise was the same in all. Playing as the pop star, you had to rescue children who had been kidnapped by a gangster. To aid you in your quest you had a range of super powers, including the ability to transform into a giant mech with the help of MJ's pet chimp, Bubbles.
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