Pac-Man makes its debut in a Tokyo arcade
On this day · 22 May 1980
A maze, a hungry yellow circle, and four ghosts quietly went on test in Shibuya—the date Namco still calls Pac-Man's birthday.
On May 22, 1980, a new arcade game called Puck Man went on its first location test in Shibuya, Tokyo. Bandai Namco still treats that date as Pac-Man’s official birthday, even though the nationwide Japanese release came later, in July.
Designer Toru Iwatani had set out to make something different. Most arcade hits of the era leaned on war and sports; he wanted a friendly game that women and couples would enjoy. The result was a yellow circle gobbling dots through a maze while four colored ghosts gave chase.
Renamed Pac-Man for the West so vandals couldn’t turn the “P” into an “F.”
Non-gamers took to it instantly, and the simple loop of chomp, flee, and power-pellet revenge became a global phenomenon. Pac-Man went on to become the highest-grossing arcade game ever and one of the most recognizable characters in gaming, helping draw a whole new audience into the arcade.
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