Michael Jackson in the Video Game Space Channel 5 (+ Video)

“Space Channel 5” (Space Channel 5) is the name of a musical video game by the Japanese company Sega. It was first released in December 1999 in Japan, and the following year in North America and Europe. Versions of this game for PlayStation 2 also entered the market in the years after 2002.

One of the characters in this game is inspired by Michael Jackson and is called “Space Michael.” Space Michael speaks in place of this character. He appears at the end of the first part of the game, but in the second part (Space Channel 5 II), released in 2002, he plays a more active role. In this game, Michael uses the power of his singing to defeat his enemies.

Ulala, the Space Channel 5 reporter who has a microphone and two guns, saves Space Michael. Michael uses his singing to overpower a singing robot and teams up with Ulala to defeat Purge (Purge).

The game’s creator and director, Tetsuya Mizoguchi, says the game was originally made to attract women to video games. He says that while men tend to be drawn to games full of fighting, women prefer thinking games. Making a game that appeals to both genders is truly difficult, and Space Channel 5 was meant to take on that task.

He says that in 1999 he received a call from Jake Kazdal, the executive producer of Space Channel 5 in the United States:

“He said, ‘Michael wants to play in Space Channel 5.’ I asked, ‘Who is Michael now?!’ He said, ‘Do you mean who is Michael Jackson? The real Michael Jackson!’ He had shown me about 60 to 70 percent of the game. We were in the final stage and only a month away from finalizing the game. But Michael wanted to have a role in this game, and we told him that if it was acceptable to him, we could design the characters so that when they are abducted by space aliens, they dance like him. He agreed. We had five alien space characters dancing in the game, and one of them became Michael Jackson.”

In the second part of this game, Michael became the new boss of Space Channel 5 and played a more prominent role. In this game, the base is attacked, and Michael is abducted by Purge and a singing robot, Rhythm Rogues. In the next stage, Michael is saved by Ulala. In this stage, Michael’s dances are used. After that, Michael and Ulala team up against Purge. Throughout the game, Michael is an English-speaking character, and his lines are subtitled in Japanese.

Jake Kazdal said the following about Michael’s involvement in this project:

“I told them that Michael wants to work on this project. Everyone was like, ‘What did you say?! Michael?! What are you talking about?!’ Michael had seen the game and loved it. He was truly eager to collaborate on this project. We only had one month, and we decided to start. It was amazing. We used people who had worked with Michael on Moonwalker before. We worked quickly, and finally we got it done. We couldn’t believe we had him with us in this game.”

You can watch videos of this game on YouTube featuring the performance of Space Michael watch or download.

Source: eMJey.com / English Wikipedia / Siliconera