西角 友宏
Born in 1944 (Osaka), member since 2024
Game Designer, Advisor
Début game:
1970 – Sky Fighter (Taito)
Main gamography:
1974 – Speed Race (Taito)
1975 – Gun Fight (Taito)
1978 – Spece Invaders (Taito)
Statement from the member:
We learn from the past to understand the new. Old works may have hints for new creations locked away.
I have witnessed the history of video games for more than 50 years. Because of this, I am often called a senior veteran of the industry, but I personally feel I still have much to learn. To be honest, I find recent games somewhat challenging – their movie-like beautiful CGI and intricately crafted stories can sometimes feel a bit difficult for me to grasp. On the other hand, the video games of the 1980s, when I was passionately working as a game designer, may look crude graphically by today’s standards, but perhaps because of that, players had to imagine realistic scenes in their minds while playing, which I believe helped cultivate their imagination. I support the Game Preservation Society’s mission of passing these historically significant games on to the future. I firmly believe that someday these classic games will be reevaluated and appreciated even more.
Biography:
Nishikado joined Pacific Industrial in 1968, a development subsidiary of Taito, as a game engineer. In 1970 he developed his debut work, the electro-mechanical game Sky Fighter, and went on to release more than ten different games. He developed Space Invaders in 1978, the first Japanese video game to incorporate a CPU. It became a huge hit not only in Japan but also overseas, and became one of the representative works of the video game industry’s dawn. He has served as an advisor to Taito since 2012.
Other works:
Sky Fighter II
Border Line
Soccer
TV Basketball
Speed Race Deluxe
Interceptor
Speed Race Twin
Fisco 400
Super Speed Race
T.T. Soccer
Space Invaders Part II
Lunar Rescue
Balloon Bomber
Space Cyclone
Page updated on: 2024-12-08