22 Facts About Tomohiro Nishikado

Tomohiro Nishikado is a Japanese video game developer and engineer.

Tomohiro Nishikado is the creator of the arcade shoot 'em up game Space Invaders, released to the public in 1978 by the Taito Corporation of Japan, often credited as the first shoot 'em up and for beginning the golden age of arcade video games.

Tomohiro Nishikado began conducting his own science experiments at an early age and, in junior high school, started working with electronics by building radios and amplifiers.

Tomohiro Nishikado graduated with an engineering degree from Tokyo Denki University in 1967.

Tomohiro Nishikado had originally planned to work for Sony, but failed the final round of the company's testing process, so he instead joined an audio engineering company called Takt in early 1967.

Tomohiro Nishikado's friend told him that Taito were desperately searching for new engineers, so Nishikado decided to join Taito instead of the communications company.

Tomohiro Nishikado joined Pacific Industries Ltd in 1968, a subsidiary of Taito Trading Company.

Tomohiro Nishikado began working on arcade electro-mechanical games, developing the hit target shooting games Sky Fighter and Sky Fighter II.

Tomohiro Nishikado began working on video game development in 1972.

Tomohiro Nishikado was interested in creating arcade video games, so he spent six months dissecting Atari's Pong arcade unit and learning how the game's integrated circuits worked, and began modifying the game.

Tomohiro Nishikado developed Elepong, one of Japan's earliest locally produced arcade video games, released in 1973.

Tomohiro Nishikado produced more than ten video games up until 1977, before Space Invaders was released in 1978.

Tomohiro Nishikado developed Sky Fighter, a target shooting electro-mechanical game released by Taito for amusement arcades in 1971.

Tomohiro Nishikado considers Soccer to be Japan's first original domestically produced video game, in comparison to Japanese Pong clones released earlier, including Sega's Pong Tron and Taito's Elepong.

Tomohiro Nishikado came up with the concept by taking "a typical pong game" and rearranging the shapes so that they looked like objects such as a basketball hoop.

Tomohiro Nishikado's Speed Race was a driving racing video game, released in November 1974.

Tomohiro Nishikado considers it to be his favourite among the games he had worked on prior to Space Invaders.

Tomohiro Nishikado believed that his original version was more fun, but was impressed with the improved graphics and smoother animation of Midway's version.

In 1977, Tomohiro Nishikado began developing Space Invaders, which he created entirely on his own.

Tomohiro Nishikado left Taito in 1996 to found his own company, Dreams.

Under Dreams when it was owned by Tomohiro Nishikado, his credited games include Bust-A-Move Millennium, published by Acclaim Entertainment in 2000.

Tomohiro Nishikado personally oversaw the development of Space Invaders Revolution, released by Taito in 2005, and was involved in the development of Space Invaders Infinity Gene, released by Taito's current owner Square Enix in 2008.