Thank you for your question. Maezawa here to answer.
There is steady demand for retro game machines, and a secondhand market has formed around them. Broadly speaking, they consist of two parts: the game board and the cabinet, so you’ll need to purchase both.
Astro City-style cabinets should be relatively easy to find, but I’m concerned about how widely the old tabletop-style cabinets are still available.
By the way, I searched Yahoo! Auctions and found one listed for ¥60,000, including the cabinet. However, it’s a junk item, so there’s a high chance it may not work.
In general, capacitors deteriorate over time, so I think it ultimately comes down to whether you can replace them yourself. Rather than buying one on Yahoo! Auctions, it might be better to look for a fully working unit, even if it costs a little more.
For reference:
◆ Space Invaders
An arcade video game in which you use a laser cannon to destroy 55 invaders arranged in five rows as they advance while firing missiles. Shooting down the UFOs that appear at the top of the screen earns bonus points.
Its famous tricks included “Nagoya Shooting,” as well as “Kyoto Shooting,” “Rainbow,” and “Fossil.” The game was later ported to home consoles. The invader design is also used in the logo of the arcade chain Taito Station.
◆ Nagoya Shooting
A strategy in which you wait patiently for the invader formation to descend to the very bottom, then shoot them down rapidly from one side.
It cleverly took advantage of a “bug” that prevented you from being hit by the invaders’ missiles at the lowest level. The technique involved leaving one invader at the top, positioning your laser cannon between the formation and that remaining invader, and using it to target the UFOs that appeared overhead.
In its early days, it was also called “Mole Shooting,” “Lying-Down Technique,” “Yokohama Shooting,” “Harajuku Shooting,” “Kobe Shooting,” and “Face-to-Face.”
A strategy of shooting through the middle column of the formation rather than starting from the edge is known as “Kyoto Shooting.”
Nostalgic, huh? Try casually muttering something like “Nagoya attack” under your breath—they might react vividly. Back then, there must have been at least one kid in every class who could reproduce all the sound effects with beatboxing. “Pac-Man” was another famous game from that era, but I also think of “Head On” whenever I see news about an elderly driver going the wrong way on a highway.
As for your question, there’s a site called Space Invaders dot JP, so you should check it out. You can see what the game was like, and they sell merchandise too. They have a miniature table-style arcade cabinet that doubles as a coin bank and can actually be played by inserting 100-yen coins, so you should get one as a gift. It’s 12,500 yen. (Pretty pricey, lol.)
Taro
P.S. There really were no-panties cafés, weren’t there? And no-panties shabu-shabu restaurants too, lol. Thanks to that, even now I get a little nervous whenever I see a sports headline saying “No-bounce First Pitch.”
You’re probably talking about Space Invaders, right?
There’s a smartphone app version, so you could buy it and give it a try to see what kind of game it is.
For the tabletop Space Invaders cabinets that used to be found in coffee shops, I’d suggest asking at a specialty store in places like Akihabara.
Arcade machines like the ones found in game centers are sold with the cabinet and game separately, and you’ll need specialized knowledge to buy all the necessary components and get one working.
You mean TAITO’s Space Invaders, right?
It’s a huge arcade cabinet, and since it’s over 40 years old, you probably won’t find one for sale. TAITO has an official app for 290 yen on the App Store, so maybe you two could play that together and be perfectly satisfied.
With a Hazuki Loupe, you can see the screen just fine even on a smartphone.
