[Update] Did Michael Jackson join forces with SEGA because he was mad at Nintendo?

What if we told you Michael Jackson worked with SEGA because he was pissed at Nintendo?

That’s what Tectoy’s chairman Stefano Arnhold said in a recent interview, according to a NeoGAF user. The basic gist is Jackson approached Nintendo with an idea and was ignored, so he went to SEGA instead. The two would have a long relationship ranging from SEGA developing arcade and Genesis versions of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker to contributing music to multiple SEGA games and having an appearance in Space Channel 5.

Arnhold said SEGA sold more than 500,000 Mega Drive units in Tokyo to women due to Moonwalker alone.

The game was also very popular in the United States, and it would have been interesting to see how Nintendo would have handled Moonwalker had it developed it instead of SEGA.

Update

We reached out to former SEGA of America marketing director Al Nilsen about this story, and he didn’t seem to be familiar with any issues between Jackson and Nintendo.