You never know where a piece of video game history is going to turn up. It could be at a UK flea market, someone's dad's attic, or in the case of this next story, found in a pile of e-waste from an old recording studio.
On December 27th, Aaron Trites took to Twitter to announce that his brother had acquired a bunch of master recordings of old Midway Games soundtracks and voiceover sessions from an old recording studio.
His brother had initially only been trying to acquire some weird audio recordings, but eventually stumbled across an impressive haul of tapes that included music and voiceover for games like Killer Instinct 2, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, and Touchmaster 97. That's in addition to audio for Phantom Haus, a Williams "Fun Game" from the mid-90s, and Sega's Indy 500.
The news provoked an enthusiastic response online, with commenters like the Video Game History Foundation's Frank Cifaldi offering their assistance to ensure the collection is properly preserved. According to a follow-up from Trites, it appears that his brother has managed already to transfer the data from the DAT tapes, with some of them even containing unedited takes with raw voiceover, directions, and random asides. As of yet, though, this archive has yet to be made public.
It's a remarkable find and just goes to show how easy it is for this stuff to be discarded or wind up in the hands of personal collectors. Luckily, in this case, it seems to have landed with the right people. We've reached out to Trites for more information and will update you if we hear anything more about this find.