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64 MARCH 2016
GAMES
I ncredibly by 1982, Space
Invaders had sold over 400,000
arcade cabinets and turned over
a phenomenal $3.8 billion in revenue
across the globe. At the height of its
popularity, shopkeepers, takeaway
outlets, and even a purported funeral
parlour had made room for the game.
When it was released in 1978, its
success was unprecedented, providing a
much needed impetus to a stagnant
video game industry. And, believe it or
not, the success of Space Invaders was
down to just one man.
Tomohiro Nishikado attended Tokyo
Denki University in the 1960s, studying
electronics. As a child, he had built
basic radios and valve amplifiers to
play his records on. When the fledgling
young electronics engineer concluded
his studies, he began a short spell of
employment with an audio company.
However, on the advice of an old friend,
Nishikado took a position with Taito
Trading Company in 1969.
Established in 1953, the Tokyo-based
Taito predominantly sold imported goods
and was the first company in Japan to
distill vodka. In 1956, Taito moved into
the amusement industry, importing
and producing jukeboxes and vending
machines.
In 1972, Atari unveiled the sports video
game Pong, turning a generation on to a
new form of electronic entertainment. Its
influence reached Japan, and Nishikado
began working on his own version of the
game, developing Soccer – a derivative
of Pong.
Three years later, Taito licensed
Western Gun, a game Nishikado himself
had designed, to US company Midway,
who promptly put its own engineers
to work on it. It was redesigned using
microprocessors, a new technology that
first appeared in the US during the early
‘70s. Renamed Gun Fight and released
in the same year, it sold some 8,000
cabinets.
Intrigued by the use of microprocessors
in Gun Fight, Nishikado began to explore
the possibility of designing a game
utilising the same tech. He became
addicted to Breakout, another commercial
success for Atari built by Steve Wozniak
and a young, ambitious man named Steve
Jobs, and was inspired by the concept of
levels that had to be completed in order
for the game to progress.
Nishikado wanted to make a shooting
game with greater detailed graphics
than Breakout. Combining imported
US microprocessors and Japanese
components, Nishikado engineered his
own development tools required for the
project. It was a simple but effective
concept: Rows of enemies would march
across the screen, descending on each
pass. Players would control a firing
platform positioned at the bottom of the
screen, protected by destructible cover,
and attempt to destroy the oncoming
waves.
These enemies were initially designed
to be planes, but Nishikado couldn’t get
the movements to look right onscreen.
And an idea to use human forms was
vetoed by senior management at Taito.
After thumbing through a magazine
detailing the rise in popularity of Star
Wars, the developer made the choice to
set his game in space, basing the alien
design on a copy of War of the Worlds he
owned in school.
Working practically unassisted, the
project took just over a year to complete.
The limitation of the processors meant
Nishikado could only render the graphics
in monochrome, so the game was first
fitted into a cocktail cabinet and three
strips of coloured cellophane was overlaid
on the screen to simulate colour. With the
build completed, production commenced,
and Space Invaders eventually began
rolling out to arcades in limited numbers
across Japan in May 1978.
To be continued...
Nishikado wanted
to make a shooting
game with greater
detailed graphics
than breakout
When Space Invaders ruled the Earth. By Paul Jones.
Tomohiro Nishikado
PART 1
Nishikado's original design
sketches for Space Invaders.