Space Invaders 1978 Menkos: The First Video Game Cards Ever!

When it comes to the beginnings of video game history, what comes to the mind of many is the NES and the Mario franchise. And rightfully so. Actually, we must go back further to understand how even Nintendo got its start in video games. The first video game home console was the Magnavox Odyssey released in 1972. The Odyssey was unsuccessful. Not just because of the limitations of the technology of the time, but partly because later that year in 1972 Atari released Pong in the arcades. Pong was extremely successful and helped launch the video game industry. By Christmas of 1975 Pong was released as a home console and now anyone with a tv could enjoy playing Pong in the comfort of their home. For some reason Atari never licensed the game, so over the next couple of years the market was flooded with many different consoles sporting different variations of the popular game. Due to all the Pong home console clones, the video game industry experienced its first crash in 1977. But little did anyone know, by the following year a man named Tomohiro Nishikado would change the video game industry forever.  

Tomohiro Nishikado worked for Taito Corporation in Japan. Taito specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets, and game centers based in Tokoyo. Nishikado wanted to develop a new video game. He drew inspiration from games like Breakout, Gun Fight and from science fiction narratives like The War of the Worlds, Space Battleship Yamato and the famous film Star Wars. He wanted to make a shooting game and originally wanted to be able to shoot tanks, airplanes, and people. Taito didn’t want a violent game involving shooting people, so he had to take a different approach. What he came up with was nothing short of genius. Space Invaders, released April 1, 1978 in Japan, is a shoot’em up game that enables the player to shoot aliens out of the sky. There are multiple levels in the game and there is also a UFO that occasionally crosses the top of the screen that can be shot for extra points. Nishikado realized, due to the software limitations, the aliens were not moving as fast as he wanted. Then he found as you killed an alien, the software had one less item to account for therefore making all the others move faster. The more you killed, the faster the game got. Even the daunting music would get faster making the suspense of the game even better. This was an innocent problem with the game that Nishikado decided to keep which ended up playing a major role in the game's success. This type of gameplay was the inspiration of many video games and game designers across different genres that have stuck even to this day.  

Many don’t realize it, but Space Invaders changed the video game industry forever. Space Invaders had many “firsts” in the video game industry. Here are a just a few:

1) First fixed Shooter game

2) First game with music

3) First game to keep a high score

4) First arcade game to be ported to a console

5) First game where enemies would shoot back

By the end of 1978, Taito had installed over 100,000 arcade machines and grossed around 700 Million in Japan alone. By the end of 1979 Taito had manufactured 400,000 machines in Japan, and an additional 750,000 machines worldwide after Taito licensed the overseas rights to Midway for distribution outside of Japan. By the end of 1979, Space Invaders became the arcade industry’s best selling game of all time. In 1980 Atari received the licensing to sell Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 console, making Space Invaders the first arcade game to be ported to a console. Atari sold 2 Million units in its first year, over 4.2 Million by the end of 1981, and 5.6 million by 1982. Atari’s port of Space Invaders quadrupled their console sales and at least doubled their company's net worth. By 1982, in four short years, Space Invaders had grossed over 4 Billion which is equivalent to more than 13 Billion in today's dollars. One game! Space Invaders through the years has had many versions and ports to many different consoles, even to the Nintendo Switch.

Yes, Nintendo’s Donkey Kong helped save the video game industry from the crash in 1983, but we can’t forget what happened 5 years earlier in 1978 with the release of Space Invaders. Believe it or not, it is possible if Space Invaders had never been developed, Nintendo might not have entered the video game industry. 

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto was quoted as saying, “About a year or two after I joined Nintendo, Space Invaders came out and became a huge hit, and so Nintendo decided to go into the video game business.” 

If it wasn’t for Tomohiro Nishikado, Taito Corp and Atari, we might live in a world without Mario....and what kind of world would that be?! So, my hat goes off to one of my childhood favorites. The best shooter of all time.....Space Invaders.

Space Invaders was the first video game to raise such a level of popularity that there was a lot of different merchandise produced of the game. Currently, it is believed by Menko & Non-Sport Card dealers that the first cards produced of any video game was the Japanese Menkos of Space Invaders. The pics below are of the first Menkos produced for Space Invaders in 1978 for the promotion of the game.