Taito
The Taito Corporation (タイトー株式会社) TYO: 9646 is a Japanese developer of video game software and arcade hardware. The word Taito (pronounced "TIE-toe") translates to "far east". The company was founded in 1953 by Russian Michael Kogan.
Taito started out importing and distributing vending machines. Later, they began leasing jukeboxes but they eventually started to manufacture their own. Taito also imports and distributes American coin-op video games in Japan, as well as their own games all around the world.
Although Taito was already making coin-op electro-mechanical and pinball games during the 1960's, it wasn't until 1973 that Taito introduced it's first video game. It was also in 1973 that they officially changed their entity name from "Taito Trading Company" to "Taito Corporation" keeping the exact same logo (that would later be changed in 1988 for it's current logo"). In 1978 Toshihiro Nishikado, a designer working at Taito, created "Space Invaders" which would become Taito's most popular title ever. That game was published in the US by Bally Midway. Due to the huge success of Space Invaders, Taito opened in 1979 an american subsidiary called "Taito America" in order to release themselves their games in North America. While most of the games Taito America published were games developed by its japanese parent company, they did also publish a few games that they licensed from third-party companies. In 1995, Taito America closed their doors meaning that all Taito games coming to America will now be published by other companies
In 1992, Taito designed a CD-ROM-based console system that allowed people to download and play arcade-quality CD-ROM games, but the system was never released.
Taito is now part of the Kyocera group.
"Taito" means "skill" in Finnish.
Titles
- Arkanoid series
- Battle Gear series
- Bubble Bobble
- Bubble Memories
- Bubble Symphony
- Chase H.Q.
- Cadash
- Darius series
- Don Doko Don
- Dungeon Magic (Lightbringer)
- Elevator Action
- Elevator Action Returns
- Energy Breaker
- Jungle Hunt
- Let's Go by Train! (Known as Densha de Go! in Japan)
- Liquid Kids
- Lufia
- New Zealand Story
- Operation Wolf (series)
- Panic Restaurant
- Parasol Stars
- Pocky & Rocky (known as Kiki Kaikai in Japan, the series were published by Natsume)
- Pon Poko Pon
- Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move series
- Puzznic
- Qix
- Rainbow Islands
- Rastan
- Ray Force series
- Return of the Invaders
- Space Invaders
- Space Invaders Part II
- Space Invaders '95
- Super Space Invaders '91
External links
- http://www.taito.co.jp/ - Company homepage (in Japanese)