page_title: Video games in Japan
section_title: 1970s–early 1980s
hierarchical_section_title: Video games in Japan / History / 1970s–early 1980s
caption_attribution_description: Donkey Kong arcade at the QuakeCon 2005, without the background
context_page_description: Video gaming in Japan is a major industry. Japanese game development is often identified with the golden age of video games, including Nintendo under Shigeru Miyamoto and Hiroshi Yamauchi, Sega during the same time period, Sony Computer Entertainment when it was based in Tokyo, and other companies such as Taito, Namco, Capcom, Square Enix, Konami, NEC, and SNK, among others.
  The space is known for the catalogs of several major publishers, all of whom have competed in the video game console and video arcade markets at various points. Sega - Service Games, founded by American veterans in Japan after World War II - released Periscope in 1966, a major arcade hit in Japan, preceding several decades of success in the arcade industry there. Nintendo, a former hanafuda playing card vendor, rose to prominence during the 1980s with the release of the home video game console called the Famicom or "Family Computer", which became a major hit as the Nintendo Entertainment System or "NES" in the United States.
context_section_description: Use of color graphics and individualized antagonists were considered "strong evolutionary concepts" among space ship games. The Namco Galaxian arcade system board also introduced multi-colored animated sprites. That same year saw the release of SNK's debut shoot 'em up Ozma Wars, notable for being the first action game to feature a supply of energy, resembling a life bar, a mechanic that has now become common in the majority of modern action games. It also featured vertically scrolling backgrounds and enemies.
  Japan's first home video game console was Epoch's TV Tennis Electrotennis, a licensed version of the ping-pong game from the Magnavox Odyssey. It was followed by the first successful Japanese console, Nintendo's Color TV Game, in 1977.
  Sega's black and white boxing game Heavyweight Champ was released in 1976 as the first video game to feature fist fighting. The first stealth games were Hiroshi Suzuki's Manbiki Shounen (1979) and Manbiki Shoujo (1980), Taito's Lupin III (1980), and Sega's 005 (1981).
  Eventually, the 1978 arcade release of Space Invaders would mark the first major mainstream breakthrough for video games in Japan. Created by Nishikado at Japan's Taito Corporation, Space Invaders pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing rate of speed. Space Invaders pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing rate of speed. The game used alien creatures inspired by The War of the Worlds (by H. G. Wells) because the developers were unable to render the movement of aircraft; in turn, the aliens replaced human enemies because of moral concerns (regarding the portrayal of killing humans) on the part of Taito Corporation. As with subsequent shoot 'em ups of the time, the game was set in space as the available technology only permitted a black background. The game also introduced the idea of giving the player a number of "lives". It popularised a more interactive style of gameplay with the enemies responding to the player-controlled cannon's movement, and it was the first video game to popularise the concept of achieving a high score, being the first to save the player's score. The aliens of Space Invaders return fire at the protagonist, making them the first arcade game targets to do so. It set the template for the shoot 'em up genre, and has influenced most shooting games released since then.
  Taito's Space Invaders, in 1978, proved to be the first blockbuster arcade video game. Its success marked the beginning of the golden age of arcade video games. Video game arcades sprang up in shopping malls, and small "corner arcades" appeared in restaurants, grocery stores, bars and movie theaters all over Japan and other countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Space Invaders (1978), Galaxian (1979), Pac-Man (1980) and Bosconian (1981) were especially popular. By 1981, the arcade video game industry was worth $8 billion ($22.5 billion in 2019). Some games of this era were so popular that they entered popular culture. The first to do so was Space Invaders. The game was so popular upon its release in 1978 that an urban legend blamed it for a national shortage of 100 yen coins in Japan, leading to a production increase of coins to meet demand for the game (although 100 yen coin production was lower in 1978 and 1979 than in previous or subsequent years, and the claim does not withstand logical scrutiny: arcade operators would have emptied out their machines and taken the money to the bank, thus keeping the coins in circulation). Japanese arcade games during the golden age also had hardware unit sales at least in the tens of thousands, including Ms. Pac-Man with over 115,000 units, Donkey Kong with over 60,000, Galaxian with 40,000, Donkey Kong Jr. with 35,000, Mr. Do! with 30,000,
caption: Donkey Kong arcade cabinet
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