01
July 1979
Space Invaders Part II appears in the record
Several sources place Taito's Space Invaders Part II in Japan in July, though others cite September. The safer reading is summer 1979 Japan, with North America later.
Invader sequel card
Gaming History, One Month at a Time
GTM-1979-07
July 1979
Space Invaders gains an official follow-up in Japan according to several sources, while the original game continues to define what an arcade hit looks like.
Space Invaders Part IITaitosource conflictarcade sequel
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1979 month drawer
Installed months are active; empty drawers are held for future exhibits.
Gallery 01
News
Five researched moments from a year where arcade, home-computer and magazine evidence rarely lines up like a modern launch calendar.
02
July 1979
The sequel is still built from the original invasion
Part II reused and extended the Space Invaders formula rather than replacing it, showing how strong the original cabinet economy remained.
Alien formation overlay
03
July 1979
Operators want familiar earners
A sequel to a proven cabinet was less risky than an unknown form. 1979 arcade innovation lived beside careful imitation.
Coin-op risk ledger
04
July 1979
UK players know the invasion even when dates blur
The original Space Invaders had already reached enormous UK visibility; the sequel story was part of invasion culture rather than a neat day-one event.
UK arcade row
05
July 1979
Home play still cannot match the cabinet
Before the 1980 Atari VCS port, the official home Space Invaders experience is still something players are waiting for.
Unfilled cartridge slot
Gallery 02
Releases
A deliberately sparse shelf: only month-specific releases supported by the sources reviewed are displayed.
Summer 1979Arcade
Official arcade sequel
Space Invaders Part II
Taito's official sequel added new touches to the alien formation. The exact Japanese month is disputed, so this entry avoids a fake exact date.
Gallery 03
Hardware
Four hardware/context objects explaining the month without pretending Britain had a mature games retail shelf yet.
Atari VCS as the home reference point
In July 1979 the Atari VCS was not yet the renamed 2600, but it was becoming shorthand for home videogames in North America. In Britain it remained aspirational, expensive, and less ordinary than the arcade.
Cartridge consoleWoodgrain-era identityPre-2600 name
Arcade cabinets as the premium display
The most advanced game experiences were still cabinets: dedicated controls, loud sound, glowing marquees and operators choosing what deserved floor space.
Coin-op cultureDedicated hardwareLocation-based play
Home computers before the UK bedroom boom
The Apple II, PET, TRS-80, Nascom and other early machines made games programmable, but they were not yet the cheap British home-micro explosion of 1982.
BASICCassette or diskMagazine listings
Black-and-white and colour lived together
This was a transition year. Some games still relied on monochrome displays, overlays or stark vector lines, while titles such as Galaxian made colour feel increasingly important.
Vector displaysColour arcade boardsScreen overlays still visible
Gallery 04
Magazine Covers
In 1979, the magazine was often the map: part catalogue, part classroom, part rumour network.
July 1979
Practical Computing
Practical Computing belongs to the 1979 map of play: not always a games magazine, but part of the paper network that taught people what small computers and arcade culture meant.
July 1979
Personal Computer World
Personal Computer World belongs to the 1979 map of play: not always a games magazine, but part of the paper network that taught people what small computers and arcade culture meant.
July 1979
BYTE
BYTE belongs to the 1979 map of play: not always a games magazine, but part of the paper network that taught people what small computers and arcade culture meant.
July 1979
Creative Computing
Creative Computing belongs to the 1979 map of play: not always a games magazine, but part of the paper network that taught people what small computers and arcade culture meant.
Gallery 05
Online Life
Online play existed at the edge of institutions and networks, but most players lived in an offline culture of paper, coins and local knowledge.
Online life was mostly not a visitor experience yet
For most players in July 1979, games were discovered through arcades, shops, magazines, clubs and word of mouth. The web did not exist, and domestic online play was not part of ordinary gaming life.
MUD1 existed, but behind institutional doors
Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle's MUD work at the University of Essex belongs to this era, but it was a university/mainframe culture, not something a high-street player would casually log into at home.
Printed listings were the practical network
For home-computer owners, the closest thing to downloading a game was often typing a listing from a magazine, saving it to cassette, and hoping the checksum of human patience held.
The arcade was a live feed
Scores, tricks and rumours updated by watching other people play. A good cabinet in a cafe, arcade or seaside amusement hall could teach faster than any printed manual.
Gallery 06
What It Felt Like
A month from the pre-specialist-games-magazine world: public cabinets, expensive machines and a future still forming.
01
The future was in public
The future was still public: a glowing cabinet, someone waiting behind you, and a score that mattered because other people could see it.
02
The home version was still an idea
At home, games were mixed with education, programming and the awkward argument that an expensive computer was not only a toy.
03
Britain felt it through arcades and magazines
In Britain the texture was arcades, computing magazines, shop-window machines and rumours rather than a mature boxed-games retail culture.
04
Dates were not launch-day culture yet
The modern habit of exact worldwide release dates does not fit 1979 neatly. Games appeared through trade shows, operator routes, regional shipments, adverts and later memory.