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 courtroom and the courtroom of public opinion. By way of all of it, Mitchell has insisted that all of his information was set on unmodified Donkey Kong arcade {hardware}, regardless of some convincing technical proof on the contrary.
Now, new images from a 2007 efficiency by Mitchell appear to indicate apparent modifications to the machine used to earn no less than a type of scores, an interesting new piece of proof within the lengthy, contentious battle over Mitchell’s place in Donkey Kong score-chasing historical past.
The images 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 document on the time (however which by now would barely crack the highest 30). In his defamation case towards Twin Galaxies, Mitchell contains 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 unique Nintendo Donkey Kong Arcade machine as I’ve identified since 1981.”
However the footage from the FAMB conference, made public by fellow high-score-chaser David Race final month, increase extra questions on that declare, because of what Race calls a “obviously non-original joystick” seen within the machine proven in these images.