| Taito Corporation |
Article Index for Taito |
Website Links For Taito |
Information AboutTaito Corporation |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT TAITO CORPORATION | |
| companies established in 1953 | |
| companies based in tokyo | |
| japanese video game companies | |
| taito | |
| video game developers | |
|
The Taito Corporation (タイトー株式会社, taitō kabushikigaisha) is a Japanese developer of Video Game software and arcade hardware.The word Taito (pronounced "TIE-toe") translates to " Far East ". HISTORY The company was founded in 1953 by Russian Michael Kogan as Taito Trading Company (株式会社太東貿易, kabushikigaisha taitō bōeki). 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 its first video arcade game. It was also in 1973 that they changed their corporate name from "Taito Trading Company" to "Taito Corporation". In 1978 Toshihiro Nishikado , a designer at Taito, created '' Space Invaders '' which became the company's most popular title ever and one of the biggest and most memorable game in arcade history. This game was published in the US by Midway . Space Invaders was inspired by an earlier 1972 electro-mechanical game by Taito called ''Space Monsters''. Due to the huge success of Space Invaders, Taito opened in 1979 an American division called Taito America Corporation in order to release games in North America . Taito America was based in Elk Grove Village , Illinois and was handling the arcade sector of the company in North America. While the majority of the games Taito America published were games developed by its Japanese parent company, they did also publish games that they licensed from Third-party companies. Besides Taito America, Taito had another division in North America called '''Taito Software Inc''' that was in charge of the non-arcade sector of the company . Based in North Vancouver , British Columbia and established in 1988 , Taito Software released Taito games exclusively for home computers and consoles. Prior to Taito Software, the consumer side was also handled by Taito America. Like Taito America, Taito Software's catalog was mainly games developed by the Japanese parent company and occasionally games licensed from other companies. 1995 marked the last year that North America saw the Taito label on new games as Taito America and Taito Software closed down their offices at the same time. Games developed by Taito are still available in North America to this day but they now bear the name of other publishers. Taito has had a big influence on the course of videogame history, developing some very innovative games. Of course most notably Space Invaders , but also games such as Qix , Bubble Bobble , Puzznic and Puzzle Bobble introduced unique and innovative gameplay ideas. 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. On 2005 , Taito became a subsidiary wholly owned by Square Enix. {Link without Title} On 25 October 2005 , Sega released Taito Legends , a set of 29 taito arcade games for Microsoft's Xbox, Sony's PS2 and PC. The PSP , version contains 16 Games. TITLES EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|