of 1976. The game was ported to the Bally Astrocade console and several computer platforms. Gun Fight's success helped pave the way for Japanese video games in the American market. Interceptor is a first-person combat flight simulator designed by Tomohiro Nishikado. The game was first demonstrated in 1975, before releasing in Japan in March 1976, and in Europe the same year. It involved piloting a jet fighter, using an eight-way joystick to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft that move in formations of two, can scale in size depending on their distance to the player, and can move out of the player's firing range. The game used a form of pseudo-3D object-scaling to create the illusion of 3D space, a technique that was later used in racing video games such as Atari's Night Driver (1976) and Namco's Pole Position (1982), and more extensively in Sega Super Scaler arcade games during the mid-to-late 1980s. Space Invaders In 1977, Nishikado began developing Space Invaders, which he created entirely on his own. In addition to designing and programming the game, he also did the artwork and sounds, and engineered the game's arcade hardware, putting together a microcomputer from scratch. Following its release in 1978, Space Invaders went on to become his most successful video game. It is frequently cited as the "first" or "original" in the shoot 'em up genre. Space Invaders pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing speed. The game used alien creatures inspired by The War of the Worlds because the developers were unable to render the movement of aircraft; in turn, the aliens replaced human enemies because of moral concerns (regarding the portrayal of killing humans) on the part of Taito. As with subsequent shoot 'em ups of the time, the game was set in space as the available technology only permitted a black background. The game also introduced the idea of giving the player a number of "lives". It sold over 360,000 arcade cabinets worldwide, and by 1981 had grossed more than $1 billion, equivalent to $2.5 billion in 2011. As one of the earliest shooter games, it set precedents and helped pave the way for future titles and for the shooting genre. Space Invaders popularized a more interactive style of gameplay with the enemies responding to the player controlled cannon's movement. It was also