Taito Milestones 5 Announced for Nintendo Switch: 3-Cabinet Sagaia, Space Invaders Box, and All 10 Arcade Classics
Taito Corporation and arcade preservation specialist Hamster Corporation are expanding their anthology series on Nintendo Switch with the official reveal of Taito Milestones 5. Set to launch both physically and digitally on January 28, 2027 in Japan for 5,720 yen (approximately $38), this fifth installment bundles ten arcade titles originally released between 1978 and 1990, headlined by the first-ever home console conversion of the legendary three-screen arcade version of Sagaia.
First-Ever 3-Screen Sagaia Port and USB Mouse Controls on Nintendo Switch
Built once again in close collaboration with the engineering team behind Hamster Corporation's acclaimed Arcade Archives lineup, Taito Milestones 5 digs deep into the publisher's hardware history rather than simply recycling standard ports. The centerpiece of the compilation is Sagaia (1989), the reworked international arcade version of Darius II featuring altered stage routing and pacing. For the first time on console, players will be able to experience the horizontal shoot 'em up against the Belser fleet in its ultra-wide three-screen arcade cabinet format.
Equally important for arcade purists, Taito's official portal confirms that rotary-dial (spinner) and trackball games in the lineup, including Arkanoid: Revenge of DOH and Marine Date, feature native USB mouse support on Nintendo Switch. Plugging in a mouse restores the rapid, pixel-accurate paddle movement that analog thumbsticks often struggle to replicate, arriving at a great moment for classic game preservation right alongside Capcom's 29 classic NES and SNES titles recently rated in South Korea.
Complete List of All 10 Included Arcade Classics (1978 to 1990)
Spanning twelve years of coin-op creativity, the ten games featured on the Taito Milestones 5 cartridge cover everything from the birth of microprocessor-based Japanese arcade cabinets to late-1980s action and sports brawlers:
- Space Invaders (1978): The cultural phenomenon and Japan's first CPU-powered video game, tasking players with defending Earth's shields from descending alien ranks while hunting down mystery-point UFOs.
- Marine Date (1981): A charming underwater obstacle-course rarity with USB mouse support where you guide an octopus out of its jar past seahorses, crabs, turtles, sharks, and bubbles to reach its partner, assisted by bonus mermaids.
- Land Sea Air Squad / Rikukaikū Saizensen (1986): Known internationally as Storming Party, an eight-round multi-directional run-and-gun where Sergeant Sargy pilots land, sea, and air super-mechs to blow up 40mm fortress cannons.
- Extermination (1987): A vertically scrolling on-foot shooter where players battle through a stronghold overrun by man-made mutants to rescue a captured woman.
- Arkanoid: Revenge of DOH (1987): The expanded sequel to Arkanoid launching the VAUS 2 spacecraft from the mothership MIXTEC against the dimensional fortress DOH, complete with branching stage paths, new power-ups, and USB mouse controls.
- Plump Pop (1987): A whimsical trampoline-action game where Rocky the dog, Cookie the cat, and Piggy the pig bounce their offspring into the sky to pop demon-controlled balloons.
- Final Blow (1989): A heavyweight arcade boxing showdown featuring five fighters and a high-and-low three-strength punch system built around devastating knockdowns.
- Crime City (1989): The side-scrolling run-and-gun spin-off starring Chase H.Q. detectives Tony Gibson and Raymond Broady on foot, blending elevator shootouts with 3D target-shooting stages.
- Sagaia, Three-Screen Version (1989): The overseas edition of Darius II with restructured solar-system stages, preserved for the first time in its original triple-monitor arcade aspect ratio.
- Hat Trick Hero (1990): Known in Western arcades as Football Champ, an eight-nation arcade soccer tournament famous for its star strikers and legal cheap shots whenever the referee's back is turned.
Physical Editions, Space Invaders Cabinet Storage Box, and Mikado Tournament
For physical collectors tracking the 2027 video game release calendar, Taito is pairing the Japanese retail release with two special pre-order bonuses across Amazon Japan, ebten, and the Square Enix e-STORE. Buyers can score the Taito Sound Milestones 5 special soundtrack CD alongside a papercraft Space Invaders upright cabinet storage box engineered to hold all five Taito Milestones Switch cases, available in green, red, or blue monitor variants depending on the retailer.
To celebrate the inclusion of the 1978 original, Taito will also host an official Space Invaders arcade tournament at Tokyo's legendary Takadanobaba Mikado Game Center, marking the company's first official tournament for the classic in roughly a decade. While Western publishing dates have yet to be detailed, every previous entry in the Taito Milestones series has received physical and digital releases in North America and Europe shortly after its Japanese debut.
My Test Bench
Whenever a retro compilation reaches its fifth volume, it is easy to worry that the publisher is just scraping the bottom of the barrel. Yet Taito and Hamster genuinely won me over here with two details that show real respect for the original arcade hardware. First, finally preserving the three-screen version of Sagaia with its overseas stage layout and screen-filling boss fights is a massive treat for shoot 'em up fans who grew up with cropped single-screen home ports. Even better, adding native USB mouse support for Arkanoid: Revenge of DOH and Marine Date is a game-changer, because playing a high-speed spinner brick-breaker with a Joy-Con analog stick has always felt awful. Between teaming up with the Chase H.Q. detectives in Crime City and throwing dirty punches behind the referee's back in Hat Trick Hero, this cartridge has serious couch-arcade energy for early 2027.
Based on the outskirts of New York City, Chaya 'Chayane' spent five years studying software engineering in Montreal before returning to her home state. A Full-Stack developer and Deep Learning AI architecture researcher, she explores neural networks and algorithmic optimization while engineering data pipelines for Retrocharting and Gamescharting alongside Grimtag. A gamer for over 20 years and an avid collector of Nintendo history and The Legend of Zelda, she explored World of Warcraft's Azeroth before bringing her deep technical background to video game analysis.
