In 1950, industrialist Mikhailo Kogan set up an import company, Taito Yoko.
At that time, Taitung was initially reorganized and started a business of brewing and selling vodka in Japan.
Subsequently, they developed jukeboxes, pinball tables, and even doll machines, which received a good market response.
In 1972, Taidong officially changed its name to Taidong Co., Ltd., and after that, it entered the video game industry and began to co-represent Atari's Pong with Sega.
But what really made Taidong famous was the West Point Yuhiro fengshen in 1978! The arcade game "Space Invaders" designed by him, once launched, it was all over the country, and players at home and abroad went crazy about it.
Originally, Yuhiro West Corner's idea was just a shooting game for tanks or planes, but due to the hardware level and computing speed at that time, it was very rudimentary. So Tomohiro West Point simply changed his mind, everything from jane, and even set the background in space, but unexpectedly succeeded.
Among them, the enemy Crab Invader Pattern A, which came into being, has become a general existence of Taidong mascot, and if you use it now, it has become an Internet celebrity.
When "Space Invaders" was full of spirits, Namco could not sit still, and the then president Masaya Nakamura made a request that a game of the same type be launched, completely surpassing "Space Invaders", and in view of its weaknesses, the screen should be colored.
This heavy responsibility fell to Sawano and Nori, and for the color drawing problem, combined with the hardware level at that time, it was not a small difficulty.
Programmer Shigeichi Ishimura solved this puzzle, and even made the game present more than ten colors at the same time. We now see that the multi-colored part of the fighter in "Little Bee" seems ordinary, but at the time, it was enough to shock the world.
In the end, "Little Bee" really became a hit with its technical advantages, and it didn't take long to compete with "Space Invaders".
In the years that followed, influenced by these two works, the environment at that time could be described as a hotbed of space shooters, and similar games emerged endlessly.
At that time, the concept of the handheld machine was actually relatively vague, although in 1980, the Game & Watch designed by Junhei Yokoi had appeared, but the concept of portability was not recognized by everyone.
Therefore, at that time, the video game console, there will be some independent body designs that are not so large, between large arcade machines and small handhelds, and home consoles are also different.
It is equivalent to a built-in screen that combines a handheld, but it is not as mobile as an arcade machine, but it is not portable enough to play on the way out. These old-fashioned game consoles are actually more inclined to toys.
Among them, in 1981, under the boom of space shooters, Grandstand made a fluorescent tube game console called "Galactic Wars" and licensed EPOCH to sell it.
Interestingly, perhaps fearing that the title of "Galactic Wars" would not be loud enough in Japan, Epoch changed the name of the Japanese version to "Super Little Bee"...
In fact, in terms of gameplay, "Galactic Wars" is more like a shrunken version of "Little Bee", but its color is very pleasing, unfortunately, although it looks like a circular frame, the real screen inside is only a vertical bar in the middle.
In terms of the content of the game, "Galactic Wars" is divided into three levels, and then a bonus level of body docking is added, and there are four difficulties, in addition to the speed, that is, there will be one or two enemies attacking each time.
It is said that if the 9999 point is reached, the game will have a special sound effect prompt, which counts as a pass, but this, I am afraid, the average person does not have the patience to achieve, especially in this era.
The interesting thing about this fluorescent tube game console is that it also adopts an arcade-style independent joystick design, which almost draws on the advantages of various types of game consoles.
Unfortunately, in terms of gameplay, "Galactic Wars" does not have any major breakthroughs... By the way, in 1982, EPOCH made a horizontal version of the shooter, called "Space Guardians", so as to add some new ideas, which is an evolved version of "Galactic Wars".
The last thing to say is that this "Galactic Wars" game console, the list price in the year was 8800 yen, even today, it is about 485 yuan. This pricing, among the similar products of that year, is also a more expensive gear, but it is said that even so, "Galaxy Wars" is still sought after by many players. I have to say that in fact, this game console, from the appearance design, to the completion of the game is relatively complete, sales are good, but also its deserved.
Well, the content of this issue is here, and I hope that the next issue can continue to talk to you about the old stories about video games.
Sugar Cube Library Wylie Sama