12 Facts About Galaxian

Galaxian is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco.

Galaxian was inspired by the cinematic space combat scenes in Star Wars, with enemies originally being in the shape of the film's TIE Fighters.

Galaxian is one of the first video games to feature RGB color graphics and the first ever to use a tile-based hardware system, which was capable of animated multi-color sprites as well as scrolling, though the latter was limited to the starfield background while the game itself remained a fixed shooter.

Galaxian has been ported to many home systems and is included in numerous Namco compilations.

Galaxian was designed by Kazunori Sawano, who had previously worked on many of Namco's electro-mechanical shooting gallery arcade games, notably Shoot Away .

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The following year, Galaxian outperformed Pac-Man for a while, before the year ended with Galaxian again being the second highest-earning arcade game of 1980, below Pac-Man.

Galaxian was later the 18th highest-grossing arcade video game of 1981, tied with Defender and Turbo.

Video magazine in 1982 reviewed the Astrocade version of Galaxian, noting that the graphics were inferior to the coin-op and PC versions, but praising the play-action as "magnificent" compared to other console versions.

Galaxian spawned a long series of sequels and spin-offs for multiple game platforms, including arcade hardware and home video game systems.

Japan-only medal game spin-off, Galaxian Fever, was released in 2000 as part of Namco's Shooting Medal series.

Galaxian is included in the Namco Museum series of collections across several platforms.

Galaxian was released on Microsoft Windows in 1995 as part of Microsoft Return of Arcade.