Midway benefited greatly from the relationship they had with Taito when it came to SI as they had the license to manufacture and sell the game in the US. The famous stories of arcades popping up in Japan with nothing but SI machines and the country suffering a brief shortage of coins because of the game are both true and fascinating. It certainly began a golden age for Taito and for a short time they focused on producing Space Invaders machines and nothing else to fill demand. I discuss that in my book The Arcade Experience and lay out why I personally think of that age starting with Atari’s Breakout but Space Invaders has legs to stand on with this claim. It was also the first game to be brought to the US from Japan, released in the US by Midway under the name Wheels.įor some people, the “Golden Age of Video Games” began when Taito launched Space Invaders. This game was designed by Tomohiro Nishikado and it was different enough from Gran Trak 10 to stand on its own – it offered selectable difficulty levels and had scrolling graphics on a vertical screen which was an important graphical innovation. Either way they both were released around the same time and with Taito’s focus centered on Japan and Atari’s on the USA in 1974, for many customers the respective games would be the first for them. There is a grey area over who it was that produced the first racing game – Taito claims they did with Speed Race while Atari historians make the claim that Gran Trak 10 was the first. Like other companies at the time, they quickly realized that they would have to come up with some unique ideas to stay relevant.
Taito was no exception, including titles with straightforward names like Soccer, Basketball, or Pro Hockey.
The early 70s are full of games that are derived from sports titles. Most flyers below from from Arcade various links from Killer List of Videogames and Please give each tab time to load, they are heavy on media so that may cause an issue on slower connections. I’m not going to be able to mention every game they created and that’s probably not necessary but here are some that come to mind.Ĭlick on the tabs to check out the various titles released during their respective periods. Their efforts have affected the industry worldwide more than once and so let’s celebrate by taking a stroll down memory lane of some of those titles. We’d like to thank our fans for a wonderful 60 years, we wouldn’t be here without you! We look forward to spending the next 60 years with you as well!!“ Today TAITO is still very active in many aspects of the entertainment business, with divisions handling arcade operations, the design and manufacture of new arcade games, the design and publishing of smartphone games and other digital content, and the creation of a wide variety of merchandise and crane game prizes. (Poke around our Facebook timeline for photos from over the years!) In the beginning, TAITO was Japan’s first distiller and seller of vodka, and the manufacture of peanut vending machines followed, along with jukeboxes, mechanical and electromechanical games, and finally video games. “ It’s our birthday!! 60 years ago today, in 1953, TAITO (then the Taito Trading Company) was founded by entrepreneur Michael Kogan. This past Friday was a date that was important to arcade and video game history but I did not realize that until I saw a message on Facebook from Taito.