Soccer is Taito's third ever video game release and the first developed internally. The game was designed by the highly influential Tomohiro Nishikado, who would later go on to create Space Invaders. Soccer is a ball-and-paddle game like Pong, but with a green background to simulate a playfield, allowing each player to control both a forward and a goalkeeper. The players can adjust the size of the players, who are represented as paddles on screen. It also has a goal on each side. Soccer is likely to be Japan's first original domestically produced video game, in comparison to Japanese Pong clones released earlier, including Sega's Pong Tron and Taito's Elepong. Since it was exported to Europe in 1973 it may also be the first Japanese video game to be released on the European continent.
