Space Invaders is a 1978 video game created by Taito for arcade machines. Taito first released it in Japan in July 1978 and later released it in other countries with help from Midway Manufacturing. Space Invaders was the first video game with endless gameplay and the first fixed shooter, which created a new type of game. The goal is to destroy waves of aliens that move downward using a laser cannon that moves left and right to earn the most points possible.

The game's designer, Tomohiro Nishikado, was inspired by other video games like Gun Fight and Breakout, as well as electro-mechanical target games and science fiction stories such as The War of the Worlds, the anime Space Battleship Yamato, and the movie Star Wars. To build the game, he had to create special hardware and tools to use new microprocessor technology, which he had not worked with before. After its release, Space Invaders became very popular worldwide. By 1982, it had earned over $3.8 billion (equivalent to $10 billion in 2024) and made $450 million in profit (equivalent to $1.2 billion in 2024). At the time, it was the best-selling video game and the highest-grossing entertainment product, as well as the most successful video game ever. It is also one of the most profitable media franchises in history.

Space Invaders is widely regarded as one of the most important and greatest video games ever made. It helped start the golden age of arcade games and contributed to Japan's lasting success in the video game industry. The game inspired many game designers to join the field and influenced many other games across different types. It has been released on many platforms, including the 1980 Atari 2600 version, which greatly increased sales of the Atari 2600 console and became the first major success for home video game systems. The pixelated alien characters from the game have become famous symbols of video games. The game has led to many sequels and remakes, inspired art and music, been copied in other media, and even caused laws to be made about video game access.

Gameplay

Space Invaders is a game where the player controls a laser cannon, called a "Laser Base," that moves left and right across the bottom of the screen. The player shoots at a group of alien invaders above. The aliens start as five rows of eleven (some versions have different numbers) and move left and right together. Each time they reach the edge of the screen, they move downward. The goal is to destroy all the aliens before they reach the bottom of the screen. If the aliens reach the bottom, the game ends, even if the player has lives remaining.

The aliens try to destroy the player’s cannon by firing projectiles. The Laser Base is protected by stationary defense bunkers, which the aliens gradually destroy from above. If the player shoots while positioned under a bunker, the bottom of the bunker will be destroyed. As the aliens are defeated, their movement and the game’s music become faster. After all aliens are destroyed, another wave begins lower on the screen, creating a loop that can continue endlessly. Occasionally, a special "mystery ship" appears at the top of the screen and gives bonus points if destroyed.

Development

Space Invaders was created by Tomohiro Nishikado, a Japanese game designer. He spent one year designing the game and building the hardware needed to make it work. Since he worked alone and made many tools by hand, the cost to develop the game was low. Taito, the company that released the game, did not credit Nishikado as a designer because his contract required him to stay anonymous.

The game was inspired by Atari, Inc.'s 1976 arcade game Breakout. In 1977, Breakout-style games were popular in Japan. Nishikado liked Breakout and wanted to create a better version. He aimed to combine the feeling of accomplishment from breaking targets one by one with elements of shooting games. Space Invaders uses a similar layout to Breakout but has different rules: instead of bouncing a ball to hit objects, players shoot at moving enemies.

To improve the design, Nishikado wanted the enemies to have interesting shapes. Early designs included tanks, planes, and battleships. However, technical limits made it hard to animate flying enemies. He thought human characters would be easier to program but decided not to use them because he believed shooting people was immoral. After seeing the 1974 anime Space Battleship Yamato and a 1977 magazine about Star Wars, he chose a space theme. He got ideas for the aliens from the book The War of the Worlds and created images based on octopus-like creatures. Other aliens were modeled after squids and crabs. Nishikado made pixel art and used a tool to animate two frames of movement for each character. He used a light pen to adjust designs on-screen. He later added bunkers and a mystery ship to the game.

Nishikado added features that were missing in earlier games, such as enemies reacting to the player and returning fire. The game ends when enemies kill the player, not just when a timer runs out. Instead of a timer, enemies move closer to the player, reducing the time available. Nishikado wanted the game to get harder as it progressed, making it more interesting and ensuring players would not play for too long. He used feedback from coworkers to balance the difficulty. He later said he would have made the game less challenging without their help. The game was originally called Space Monsters after a popular song in Japan, but the title was changed to Space Invaders by his superiors.

Nishikado designed his own custom hardware and tools for Space Invaders. The game uses an Intel 8080 central processing unit (CPU) and displays images on a CRT monitor using a bitmapped framebuffer. It produces monaural sound using a combination of analog circuits and a Texas Instruments SN76477 sound chip.

The use of a microprocessor was inspired by the 1975 game Gun Fight, which was a microprocessor version of Nishikado’s earlier game Western Gun. Taito had licensed Midway’s technology to use in its games. Nishikado used Midway’s arcade board as a base and added extra boards and circuits to expand its capabilities.

Since microprocessors were made in the United States, Nishikado had to rely on his limited English skills to understand technical materials. He studied American games and learned to use a microcomputer for about six months. While planning the game, he improved the hardware step by step. He said his experience with integrated circuits and learning assembly language in university helped him work with the new hardware.

To add sound, Nishikado worked with Michiyuki Kamei, who made sound effects for Taito’s games. Kamei spent four to five months on the audio for Space Invaders while also working on another game, Blue Shark. Because management prioritized Blue Shark, his work on Space Invaders was rushed to meet a summer 1978 unveiling event. Kamei reused parts from other Taito games to save time. He adjusted resistors and capacitors to change the pitch and length of sound effects from Blue Shark. To create the moving sound of the aliens, he used a 556 timer chip from Super Speed Race. After seeing the monster artwork and feedback from Nishikado, Kamei changed the sound to be less comical. To match the Jaws shark theme, he added resistors to lower the pitch. Texas Instruments had given Taito free samples of the SN76477 chip, which Kamei tested. He chose it for the mystery ship’s sound because it saved space on the board, even though it cost more.

Despite the custom hardware, Nishikado could not program the game exactly as he wanted. The Control Program board was not powerful enough to display color or move enemies faster. He found the hardware development to be the most difficult part of the process. While programming, he noticed the processor could render alien animations faster when fewer aliens were on the screen. This caused the enemies to move faster as more were destroyed, and the audio sped up as well. Instead of fixing this, he kept it as a feature. Later, he said

Release

Taito first officially published Space Invaders for copyright reasons in April 1978. The company introduced the game to businesses in June 1978. The main focus of the event was Blue Shark, which Taito believed would be more successful, and Space Invaders was added later during planning. By July 1978, Taito began producing the game in large quantities and released it. In August 1978, the company launched an upright arcade cabinet and announced it. The following month, Taito released a cocktail-table cabinet version, called T.T. Space Invaders in Japan to show it was a "table-top" version. On September 18, 1978, Taito submitted a trademark request for the game's name to the Japan Patent Office.

Soon after release, developers found a problem with the coin mechanism. Since only a few hundred units had been made, Taito fixed the issue by replacing the machines' read-only memory (ROM). Taito also received requests to repair the game's audio, which Kamei discovered was caused by the loudspeaker's paper diaphragm breaking from use. The company replaced the diaphragms in existing machines with a stronger version and included the upgrade in future cabinets. A gameplay bug was found that prevented the invaders' attacks from harming the laser cannon at very close range. Although a programming fix was possible, Taito's management decided not to replace the ROM again, as the game's popularity made it too expensive to do so. Players eventually used the bug as a strategy and named it "Nagoya shooting" and "Wall of Death."

By the end of 1978, Taito had installed over 100,000 machines in Japan. To meet demand, Taito licensed the overseas rights to Midway for distribution outside Japan near the end of 1978. Midway released upright and cocktail versions. By December 1978, Taito had to import Midway cabinets into Japan to meet demand. The company added Japanese instruction cards to the cabinets and called them Space Invaders M. Taito also released a color version of T.T. Space Invaders that month. Success led Taito to invest in manufacturing and expand globally, creating a subsidiary called Taito America in the United States in 1979. On December 10, 1979, Taito filed a trademark request for its arcade game with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. By June 1979, Taito produced 200,000 to 300,000 units for Japan and increased production to 25,000 to 30,000 units per month, with plans to make 400,000 machines in Japan by year's end. By the end of 1979, an estimated 750,000 Space Invaders machines were installed worldwide, including 400,000 in Japan and 85,000 in the United Kingdom. Within a year of its U.S. release, 60,000 units were in the country, and the number grew to 72,000 by 1982. Nishikado wanted to design newer hardware to stay competitive, but high demand led Taito to support existing Space Invaders hardware by creating compatible games. This allowed other companies time to develop matching technology. Space Invaders cabinets have become collector's items, with cocktail and cabaret versions being the rarest. In 2003, Taito announced plans to produce 10,000 Space Invaders cabinets for the game's 25th anniversary.

The 1980 version of Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 was the first official licensing of an arcade game for home consoles. It became a very popular game that greatly increased the console's sales. Other official home releases included a 1980 version for Atari 8-bit computers and a 1982 version for the Atari 5200 console. Taito released its own version for the Nintendo Famicom in 1985, exclusively in Japan. By 1982, Space Invaders was available for handheld electronic game devices, tabletop consoles, home computers, watches, and pocket calculators.

More than 100 Space Invaders video game clones were released for various platforms. At the time, software and video games were not officially protected by Japanese copyright law. After Taito won a legal case involving a sequel (Space Invaders Part II) in the Tokyo District Court in December 1982, the company could legally challenge unauthorized copies. Examples of clones include the 1979 Super Invader for Apple computers, Epoch Co.'s 1980 TV Vader home console, and the 1981 TI Invaders for the TI-99/4A computer, which became the top-selling game for its platform by 1982. Before becoming a major industry leader, Nintendo made clones of popular games, including the 1979 Space Invader clone Space Fever. The rise of clones led to the term "Invader game" to describe this category of games. Unofficial copies dominated the video game market in South Korea, and demand for the machine's hardware helped grow Korea's semiconductor industry early on.

Reception

When Space Invaders first came out, people at Taito had different opinions about it. Some of Nishikado’s coworkers liked the game and played it, but his bosses thought it might not sell well because it ended quickly, unlike other games that used timers. At first, Japanese arcade owners were not interested, but pachinko parlors and bowling alleys started using the game. Soon, these businesses added more machines, and the game became very popular. Soon after, special arcades called "Space Invaders Parlours" and "Space Invaders Houses" opened, offering only Space Invaders machines.

One year after its release, Space Invaders became the best-selling arcade game ever. It stayed the top game until 1980. By the end of 1978, the game had earned Taito US$670 million in Japan alone (about $3.3 billion in 2025). By June 1979, each arcade machine made an average of $46 per day (about $204 in 2025). The game’s popularity helped it become the first arcade game to pay back the cost of a machine within a month. In 1982, arcade machines cost between $2,000 and $3,000. By 1979, Space Invaders had earned over $1 billion (about $4.9 billion in 2025). In 1981, the game made $7.7 million weekly in the United States, second only to Pac-Man. That year, the Arcade Awards were created, and Space Invaders won the first Best Coin-Op Electronic Game award. By 1982, the game had earned $2 billion (about $6.67 billion in 2025) and made a net profit of $450 million (about $2.22 billion in 2025). This made it the best-selling video game and highest-grossing entertainment product of its time. It was compared to Star Wars, which had earned $486 million with a net profit of $175 million in the early 1980s. By 1982, Space Invaders had earned $3.8 billion (about $13 billion in 2016). By 2008, Taito had made over $500 million (about $748 million in 2025) from the game.

Different versions of Space Invaders received varied reviews. The Atari 2600 version was popular, selling over 6.1 million copies by 1983. It was the best-selling Atari 2600 game until Pac-Man came out in 1982. Reviewers praised the game’s gameplay and called it a highly competitive reaction game. However, some said the graphics and sound were only average. The Famicom version was not well received. Some reviewers said it was not as close to the original arcade game as other versions.

Years after its release, Space Invaders was praised for its historical importance. It was ranked the top game by Flux magazine in 1995 and listed among the most important games by Next Generation in 1996. Guinness World Records called it the top-rated arcade game for technical, creative, and cultural impact. In 2021, The Guardian ranked it the third-greatest video game of the 1970s.

Many publications have called Space Invaders one of the most influential games. IGN listed it as one of the "Top 10 Most Influential Games" in 2007, saying it inspired many designers and shaped the shooting genre. The Times Online called it the "most influential video game ever" in 2007. IGN also called it a "seminal arcade classic." In 2011, 1UP.com ranked it the third "Most Influential Game of All Time," calling it the first true video game. Space Invaders was added to the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2016. Nishikado, the game’s creator, did not think it was his best work for 20 years. He later changed his mind after seeing how much people still enjoy it.

Legacy

Space Invaders has been made available on many platforms and led to the creation of many follow-up games. Some re-releases include updated versions of the original arcade game, with changes to the graphics and added gameplay features. Later versions of the game introduced new ways to play and added new elements to the original design. In 1980, Bally released a pinball version of the game that did not include any parts from the original arcade game. The aliens in this version looked like the xenomorphs from the movie Alien. Bally was sued because the aliens resembled designs by artist H. R. Giger. This pinball machine was the third most successful pinball game of 1980 in the United States. In 2017, Super Impulse made a small version of the game as part of its Tiny Arcade series. In 2023, Numskull Designs created another small arcade cabinet to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the game, which was sold in its Quarter Arcades line.

Taito released several arcade sequels. The first was Space Invaders Part II in 1979, which had color graphics, a special introduction mode, new gameplay features, and a short break between levels. This version was sold in the United States as Deluxe Space Invaders, with different colors and a background showing a lunar city. Another arcade version, Space Invaders II, was only sold in the United States. It had a cocktail-table design, fast alien attacks, and a two-player competitive mode. In 1985, Return of the Invaders was released with improved graphics and more complex alien movements and attacks. Later arcade sequels included Super Space Invaders '91, Space Invaders DX, and Space Invaders '95, each adding small changes to the original game. Some of these arcade versions are now valuable to collectors, with some being harder to find. In 2002, Taito released Space Raiders, a third-person shooter game inspired by Space Invaders. In 2008, Space Invaders Extreme was released for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable, adding musical elements to the gameplay. A 2008 version called Space Invaders Get Even for WiiWare allowed players to control the aliens instead of the laser cannon. Later arcade versions included Space Invaders Frenzy in 2017 and Space Invaders Counter Attack in 2020. Both games had two-player gameplay with many invaders on screen.

Space Invaders and related games have been included in video game collections. In 2003, Space Invaders Anniversary was released for the PlayStation 2 and included nine versions of the game. A similar version for the PlayStation Portable, Space Invaders Pocket, was released in 2005. Space Invaders, Space Invaders Part II, and Return of the Invaders were included in Taito Legends, a collection of classic Taito games released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC. Super Space Invaders '91, Space Invaders DX, and Space Invaders '95 were part of Taito Legends 2, a sequel collection released in 2006. In 2025, Blaze Entertainment announced plans to release a Taito-themed arcade cabinet and a Taito cartridge for the Evercade handheld console, both including Space Invaders and other classic Taito games. Hamster Corporation also released the game digitally in 2025 as part of its Arcade Archives and Arcade Archives 2 series.

In early 2026, Space Invaders was noted as an important example of digital heritage and software preservation. While physical versions of the game are still available, the original 1978 version has been preserved using browser-based emulation tools like Ruffle. As of 2026, the original arcade experience can be found on digital archives and websites like the Internet Archive and CrazyGames, which allow modern devices to run the game and study its original design and gameplay.

Industry experts have highlighted Space Invaders as a major milestone in video game history. Shigeru Miyamoto, a long-time leader at Nintendo, called it the most revolutionary game in the industry. Video game historian Alexander Smith noted that Space Invaders introduced a new way of playing by allowing enemies to attack the player without a timer. Developer Eugene Jarvis said that many games still use the structure of Space Invaders, including the idea of losing lives and increasing difficulty over time. The game’s characters and action helped shape future games. Video game journalist Brian Ashcraft and Jean Snow said Space Invaders was the first game to introduce the idea of saving high scores, though Guinness World Records credits the 1976 game Sea Wolf with this feature.

Technology journalist Jason Whittaker said Space Invaders helped action games become the most popular type in arcades and on consoles. He also said the game’s simple rules made it a model for the shoot-'em-up genre. After Space Invaders was released, more science fiction and space-themed games appeared. Games like Galaxian and Asteroids built on its ideas, while others, like Laser Blast, took different directions. Scott Osborne of GameSpy noted that Galaxian and Galaga were similar to Space Invaders but became successful through their own innovations. The game also influenced Defender, a 1981 game by Williams Electronics, which initially borrowed ideas from Space Invaders before changing its design. Other games, like Head On by Sega/Gremlin, used the idea of playing multiple rounds without a timer, inspired by Space Invaders.

Experts have called Space Invaders one of the most influential games in history. It introduced gameplay features that became common in the industry, such as the endless wave of enemies in shoot-'em-up games. Titles like Galaga, Centipede, and Ikaruga are part of this tradition. Kevin Bowen of GameSpy said games like Galaga and Gradius were influenced by Space Invaders. Others, like Edwards, said Space Invaders helped create the shoot-'em-up genre, which was popular in Japan during the 1980s and 1990s. Gamest magazine staff said Space Invaders started the shooting game genre and described how later games evolved from it.