Taito

Founded: 1953-08-24^[1]

T-series code: T-11

Merged into: Square Enix (2005)

Headquarters:

Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Taito Corporation (株式会社タイトー) is a video game publisher, developer and toy manufacturer known for games such as Space Invaders, Arkanoid, Bubble Bobble, Bust-A-Move and Darius. It is headquartered in Taitō city, a special ward of Tokyo, Japan - from where the company derives its name. The company's American publishing branch, Taito America, published their home console titles in North America until 1996, when the company struck a publishing deal with Acclaim Entertainment. In Europe and Australia, Taito's titles were published by other companies on their behalf.

History

On August 24, 1953, Russian-Jewish entrepreneur Michael Kogan established the Taito Trading Company. The company started its life off importing and distributing vending machines, and later jukeboxes before beginning to manufacture their own. In the 1960s it moved on to producing pinball tables, and saw its first video game released in 1973 (the same year the company was renamed Taito Corporation).

Michael Kogan passed away on February 5, 1984 while on a business trip in Los Angeles. A number of arcade industry figures wrote messages dedicated to him, including Sega figures David Rosen, Raymond Lemaire, and Hayao Nakayama.^[2] Following his passing, Michael's son, Abba Kogan became chairman of Taito and Akio Nakanishi became Taito's president.

Taito distributed their own Sega NAOMI GD-ROM systems and games.

Taito was acquired by Square Enix in 2005, though the company still exists to this day.