Space Invaders

Tomohiro Nishikado is a Japanese video game developer. He is best known as the creator of the shooter game, Space Invaders, released to the public in 1978 by the Taito Corporation of Japan, often credited as the first shoot 'em up and for beginning the golden age of video arcade games. Originally Nishikado wanted to use airplanes as enemies for Space Invaders, but would have encountered problems making them move smoothly due to the limited... computing power at the time . Humans would have been easier to render, but management at Taito forbade the use of human targets. Prior to Space Invaders, he was also the designer for many of Taito's earlier hits, including the early team sport games Soccer and Davis Cup in 1973, the early scrolling racing video game Speed Race in 1974, the early dual-stick on-foot multi-directional shooter Gun Fight in 1975, and the first-person combat flight simulator Interceptor in 1975. Nishikado graduated with an engineering degree from Tokyo Denki University in 1968. He joined Taito Trading Company in 1969.
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The Taito Corporation is a Japanese publisher of video game software and arcade hardware wholly owned by publisher Square Enix. Taito has their headquarters in the Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, sharing the facility with its parent company. Taito imports and distributes... American coin-op video games in Japan, as well as their own games all around the world. Taito also owns several game centers in Japan known as Taito Stations. Taito Corporation currently has a subsidiary in Beijing, China. In the past, the company had operated divisions in North America, Brazil, South Korea and Italy. The company was founded in 1953 by a Russian Jewish businessman named Michael Kogan as Taito Trading Company . Taito started out importing and distributing vending machines. Later, they began leasing jukeboxes and they eventually started to manufacture their own. They eventually began producing electro-mechanical arcade games in the 1960s. Taito introduced their first video arcade game in 1973. It was also this year that they changed their name from Taito Trading Company to Taito Corporation.
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