The year was 1993, and the arcade was still hanging on. While the glory days of the video game arcade were dwindling, there were still some standout titles, and most of those came from Midway. Midway had the hottest consoles in the arcade, including Terminator 2, Super High Impact Football, and of course, NBA Jam. It was, and is, an epic game the likes of which cannot be duplicated.
Now, here’s an incredibly rare, behind-the-scenes look at just how Williams Electronics pitched NBA Jam to the National Basketball Association and NBA head David Stern. Even now, this is an aspect of the business most people don’t get to see. It’s amazing to see just how A) much work Midway put into developing the player movements and digitizing the various moves, B) how their whole idea of a realistic game got thrown out the window for whatever reason, and C) how much cooler the game could have been if they had included that first-person POV dunking control.
It’s just a shame Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley never were able to get included into a home version of NBA Jam, though Kevin Johnson and Thunder Dan Majerle were borderline unstoppable in spite of the lack of the Round Mound of Rebound.
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