Tomohiro Nishikado

Tomohiro Nishikado (西角友宏, Nishikado Tomohiro^?, born March 31, 1944 in Osaka) is a Japanese video game developer. He is best known as the creator of the shooter 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 video arcade games. Originally Nishikado wanted to use airplanes as enemies for Space Invaders, but would have encountered problems making them move smoothly due to the limited computing power at the time (the game was based on Intel's 8 bit 8080 microprocessor). Humans would have been easier to render, but management at Taito forbade the use of human targets. Prior to Space Invaders, he was also the designer for many of Taito's earlier hits, including the early team sport games Soccer and Davis Cup in 1973, the early scrolling racing video game Speed Race in 1974, the early dual-stick on-foot multi-directional shooterGun Fight in 1975, and the first-person combat flight simulator Interceptor in 1975.