During one of our jaunts to a Japanese arcade earlier this month, I noticed quite a bit of promotion around Space Invaders’ 30th Anniversary. The first thing Tristan and I spotted when we hit up an arcade in Kagoshima was this cool button pressing “game.” The free kiosk had you tap a big yellow button as quickly as you could for a set time, tracking each of your taps. Once you finished, it displayed the total number of button pushes recorded at that station. The one we messed with was nearing 4 million when we saw it.
We also saw these fliers up for something called Taito Thanks Day, which featured big Space Invaders and a toothy green critter.
Finally, making our way through the sea of UFO Catchers and such found at most Japanese arcades, I spotted these special anniversary Kit Kat bars. The wrappers features little white Space Invaders. I’d like to think that the candy was somehow different as well, but I really, REALLY suck at these type of games and decided to give up after spending six bucks or so trying to win a friggin candy bar. Despite all of the hoopla surrounding the game’s anniversary, the one thing I didn’t notice was the actual game, like anywhere. Seriously, couldn’t Taito splurge a little and send out some of the original cabinets to arcades to help push the promotion?