Taito Corporation is a Japanese company that creates video games, toys, and amusement arcades. It is located in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was started in 1953 by Ukrainian businessman Michael Kogan as the Taito Trading Company. At first, it imported vodka, vending machines, and jukeboxes into Japan. In 1973, Taito began making video games. In 2005, Square Enix bought Taito, and by 2006, it became a fully owned part of Square Enix.
Taito played a key role in the early development of video games. It created popular arcade games such as Speed Race (1974), Western Gun (1975), Space Invaders (1978), Bubble Bobble (1986), and Arkanoid (1986). Taito was one of the first Japanese companies to share its games with other countries. Space Invaders helped video games grow in popularity during the late 1970s. The alien characters from this game are considered important symbols in the video game industry.
Today, Taito operates a chain of arcade centers called "Taito Game Stations" in Japan. It also makes toys, plush dolls, and prizes used in UFO-catcher machines.
History
In 1944, a Jewish Ukrainian businessman named Michael Kogan started a company called Taitung in Shanghai. Kogan was a refugee from the Soviet Union and had previously worked in a factory in Japan during World War II. He moved to Shanghai to join his father. The company's name, written in Kanji as 太東 (Pinyin: tàidōng, Japanese reading: taitō), combines the characters 太 from 猶太 ("Judea") and 東, meaning "East," which seems to refer to Kogan's identity as a Jewish person living in the Far East. Taitung sold floor coverings, natural hair wigs, and hog bristles.
When the Communist Party took control of China in 1950, Kogan closed his business in Shanghai and moved operations to Japan, which was struggling economically after the war. His second business in Japan, a clothing distributor named Taito Yoko, faced financial problems due to employee mistakes and product losses. On August 24, 1953, Taito Yoko was replaced by the Taito Trading Company, where Kogan worked with lawyer and retired newspaperman Akio Nakatani. Taito Trading Company began as a vodka distillery—the first in Japan—and imported peanut vending machines and perfume machines.
By 1955, Taito left the vodka business and focused on vending machines and jukeboxes. Because Japan did not allow jukebox imports legally, Taito bought broken machines from U.S. military bases and fixed them with working parts. As Japan's economy improved, Taito became the official distributor of AMI jukeboxes. By 1960, the company sold over 1,500 jukeboxes after mixing Japanese music with American folk songs. A partnership with Seeburg Corporation made Taito one of Japan's leading jukebox companies.
In the 1960s, Taito started making electro-mechanical games. In 1967, they released Crown Soccer Special, a two-player sports game that simulated football using electronic parts like pinball flippers. In 1968, Crown Basketball became the highest-earning arcade game at the 1968 Tampa Fair in the United States.
In August 1972, the company changed its name to Taito Corporation. In 1973, it created a U.S. subsidiary in Chicago called Taito America, which later developed its own games, such as Qix.
Taito's first video game, Elepong, was a ping-pong arcade cabinet released in Japan in 1973.
Tomohiro Nishikado, an engineer who joined Taito in 1968, helped the company shift to video games. After creating successful electro-mechanical games like Sky Fighter (1971) and Sky Fighter II, Taito asked Nishikado to study transistor-transistor logic (TTL) technology because he was the only employee with experience in integrated circuit (IC) technology.
Nishikado studied Atari's Pong arcade unit and created Soccer and Davis Cup, two Pong-style games released in 1973. He later developed other hits, including TV Basketball (1974), Speed Race (1974), and Western Gun (1975). These games were later released in North America as TV Basketball, Wheels, and Gun Fight.
In 1978, Nishikado created Space Invaders, which became Taito's most popular game and helped start the golden age of arcade video games. After Kogan died in 1984, his son Abraham "Abba" Kogan became Taito's chairman, and Akio Nakanishi became its president.
In April 1986, Taito merged with two subsidiaries, Pacific Industrial Co., Ltd. and Japan Vending Machine Co., Ltd. Japan Vending Machine had been bought by Taito in 1971 to manage amusement facilities. Pacific Industrial was created by Taito in 1963 to develop products for the company.
In 1992, Taito announced a CD-ROM-based video game console called WOWOW, which would allow players to use arcade-style games and download titles via satellite. The name came from the Japanese TV station WOWOW. The console was never released.
Taito America closed in 1996 after selling its U.S. publishing rights to Acclaim Entertainment. A European division, Taito (Europe) Corporation Limited, was created in 1988 and dissolved in 1998.
When Kyocera owned Taito, its headquarters were in Hirakawachō, Chiyoda. In 2000, Taito merged with Kyocera Multimedia Corporation to enter the mobile phone market.
In 2005, Square Enix bought 247,900 Taito shares worth ¥45.16 billion (US$409.1 million), making Taito a subsidiary of Square Enix. The goal was to increase Taito's profits and expand into new gaming areas. Square Enix acquired 93.7% of Taito's shares by September 2005 and merged Taito into SQEX Corporation. Taito became a wholly owned subsidiary of Square Enix and was removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
In 2008, Square Enix closed two Taito subsidiaries, Taito Art Corporation and Taito Tech Co., Ltd., because they had completed their goals. In 2010, Taito's home video game division became a separate company called Taito Soft Corporation, which was later absorbed by Square Enix.
Square Enix wanted to consolidate all its arcade operations under one subsidiary. The current Taito Corporation was formed on February 1, 2010, by merging the second company (formerly SQEX/Game Designers Studio) with ES1 Corporation. In a reorganization, the second company was split and renamed Taito Soft Corporation, while ES1 became part of the new Taito Corporation.
Organization
Taito operates offices in other countries, including Brazil, Belgium, Australia, and the United States.
Links:
• Japan portal
• Tokyo portal
• Companies portal
• Video Games Portal