Microsoft DirectX was created in response to the PC port of The Lion King. The Lion King was released on Christmas 1994, and many children tried playing the game, but it would crash when loading. A Wall Street Journal article was published about someone spending his entire Christmas evening trying to get The Lion King to work for his daughter. Even Disney's helplines were flooded with phone calls. Many developers became suspicious of Windows as a viable platform, and stuck with MS-DOS. In response, Microsoft quickly developed the first version of DirectX for the upcoming Windows 95.

Frank Klepacki, who composed the music for the SNES release of the game, received a letter from Hans Zimmer's studios complimenting him on the soundtrack for the game.