An nameless reader shares a report from Ars Technica:
Through the years, King of Kong star Billy Mitchell has seen his world-record Donkey Kong scores stripped, partially reinstated, and endlessly litigated, each in precise court docket and the court docket of public opinion. By means of all of it, Mitchell has insisted that each one of his data was set on unmodified Donkey Kong arcade {hardware}, regardless of some convincing technical proof on the contrary.
Now, new photographs from a 2007 efficiency by Mitchell appear to point out apparent modifications to the machine used to earn at the least a type of scores, an enchanting new piece of proof within the lengthy, contentious battle over Mitchell’s place in Donkey Kong score-chasing historical past.
The photographs in query have been taken on the Florida Affiliation of Mortgage Brokers (FAMB) Conference, which hosted Mitchell as a part of its “80s Arcade Night time” promotion in July 2007. Mitchell claims to have achieved a rating of 1,050,200 factors at that occasion, a efficiency that was acknowledged by adjudicator Twin Galaxies as a world report on the time (however which by now would barely crack the highest 30). In his defamation case in opposition to Twin Galaxies, Mitchell consists of testimony from a number of purported witnesses to his FAMB efficiency. That features former Twin Galaxies referee Todd Rogers (who was later additionally banned from Twin Galaxies), who testified that the machine used on the occasion was “an authentic Nintendo Donkey Kong Arcade machine as I’ve recognized since 1981.”
However the photos from the FAMB conference, made public by fellow high-score-chaser David Race final month, elevate extra questions on that declare, due to what Race calls a “obviously non-original joystick” seen within the machine proven in these photographs.
