Space Invaders

スペースインベーダー (Supēsu Inbēdā)Arcade, Other, NES, Wii +71978

  1. JP1978
  2. NA1978
  3. EU—
  4. RU—

Space Invaders is スペースインベーダー in Japan and kept its name worldwide; Midway's cabinets even went back to Japan as Space Invaders M. On 25 December 2025 Hamster added the arcade game to its Arcade Archives line on Switch and PS4.

Space Invaders is the 1978 arcade shooter that Tomohiro Nishikado designed and programmed for Taito. He drew on Breakout, Gun Fight and electro-mechanical target games, and the working title was Space Monsters. The invaders, modelled on octopus, crab and squid shapes, came from an illustration he drew from H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. The aliens speed up as they are destroyed, a hardware quirk that was kept as a feature.

More than 100,000 machines were installed in Japan by the end of 1978, and Midway distributed the game in North America under licence to meet demand. Reports that it caused a 100-yen coin shortage in Japan turned out to be a myth: numismatist Mark Fox found that Japan Mint output did not change.

The Atari 2600 port of 1980 became the console's first killer app, and a Famicom version followed in Japan in 1985. Early cabinets were black and white with colored cellophane, and players learned a bug-based trick called 'Nagoya shooting'.123

Names and releases

RegionTitle on the boxPlatformDatePublisherSrc
NA Space InvadersEnglish Wikipedia gives November 1978, TCRF July 1978 Arcade 1978 Midway 1
NA Space InvadersAtari 2600 Other Mar 10, 1980 — 1
JP T.T.スペースインベーダー・カラーColor table cabinet Arcade December 1978 Taito 2
JP スペースインベーダーSupēsu InbēdāJapanese Wikipedia: announced 16 June 1978, in operation from August 1978; English Wikipedia gives July 1978 and TCRF June 1978 Arcade 1978 Taito 2
JP スペースインベーダーSupēsu InbēdāFamicom, Japan only NES Apr 17, 1985 — 1
JP スペースインベーダーSG-1000 Other June 1985 — 1
JP スペースインベーダー The Original GameVirtual Console (Super Famicom version) Wii Sep 16, 2008 — 2
WW Space Invaders iOS Feb 27, 2009 — 1
WW Arcade Archives Space InvadersAlso on PS4 the same day Switch Dec 25, 2025 Hamster 3

Also known as: スペースインベーダー JP2Supēsu Inbēdā JP2T.T. Space Invaders JP2Space Invaders M JP2

Box art by region

  • T.T.スペースインベーダー・カラー box art, Japan release
    JP T.T.スペースインベーダー・カラー

Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: Wikipedia.

Version differences

  • GraphicsArcade (Taito/Midway, early)Arcade (later)

    The first Taito and Midway machines had black-and-white screens with orange and green cellophane strips for color; later Japanese cabinets used rainbow cellophane, and later still a color monitor with an electronic overlay.1

  • Bug fixArcade (TV/SV/CV revisions)Arcade (Midway)

    Taito revised the program several times: later sets fixed bugs, removed diagnostics, added five-digit scores and, in the CV set, hardware color. The Midway set is almost identical to SV revision 2 but does not show the Taito copyright on the title screen.4

  • GameplayAtari 2600

    The Atari 2600 port has 36 invaders in six rows of six instead of 55 in five rows of eleven, and the hardware rules out the Nagoya attack and the rainbow bonus.2

All differences (4)

Reception

More than 100,000 machines were installed in Japan by the end of 1978 and about 750,000 worldwide by the end of 1979, and the game grossed over $1 billion by 1979. The Atari 2600 port sold over a million copies in its first year and became the console's first killer app.1

Sources

  1. 1en.wikipedia.org
  2. 2ja.wikipedia.org
  3. 3en.wikipedia.org
  4. 4tcrf.net

Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13

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