18 Facts About Taito

Taito Corporation is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Taito was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the Taito Trading Company, importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan.

In 2005, Taito was purchased by Square Enix, becoming a wholly owned subsidiary by 2006.

Taito is recognized as an important industry influencer in the early days of video games, producing a number of hit arcade games such as Speed Race, Western Gun (1975), Space Invaders (1978), Bubble Bobble (1986) and Arkanoid (1986).

The second business, a clothing distributor named Taito Yoko, struggled financially as a result of employee carelessness and constant loss of products.

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The recovering Japanese economy allowed Taito to become the official distributor of AMI jukeboxes in the country.

Taito began manufacturing electro-mechanical games in the 1960s.

Taito spent six months dissecting Atari's Pong arcade unit and learning how the game's IC chips worked, and began modifying the game.

Taito then developed several original arcade video game hits for Taito, notably the sports game TV Basketball, the racing game Speed Race, and the shooter game Western Gun (1975); these three titles were localized by Midway Manufacturing in North America as TV Basketball, Wheels, and Gun Fight, respectively.

In 1992, Taito announced a CD-ROM-based video game console named WOWOW, that would have allowed people to play near-exact ports of Taito's arcades, as well as download games from a satellite transmission (as the Satellaview would do later).

Taito America ceased operations in July 1996 after more than 20 years of existence.

Taito had already sold exclusive rights for publishing its games in America to Acclaim Entertainment the previous year.

When Taito was owned by Kyocera, its headquarters were in Hirakawacho, Chiyoda.

In October 2000, Taito merged with Kyocera Multimedia Corporation to enter the market of mobile phones for the first time.

On November 30, 2016, Taito announced that it will distribute Space Invaders and Arkanoid for Facebook with Instant Games on Facebook Messenger and Facebook News Feed.

On July 3, 2018, Taito announced in Famitsu that it will return to the software publishing business for the eighth generation of video game consoles.

Taito has various properties planned in its software pipeline, from re-releases to new titles for various platforms; however, Taito highlighted that the console software market is a challenging business for the company.

Taito intends to develop original games for consoles in the future.