Retro spotlight: 1942

It’s kind of incredible how quickly Capcom became a significant piece of the arcade scene. The company originally started in 1979 as I.R.M. Corporation by Kenzi Sujimoto, and if you think that sounds similar to Irem, well, Sujimoto was also president of Irem at the time. One of I.R.M.’s subsidiaries was Japan Capsule Computers Co., which was both a manufacturer and distributor for electronic game machines, named that way to make it clear that the company wasn’t developing personal computers. You can see where the name Capcom eventually comes from there — it’s a portmanteau of Capsule and Computer.Capcom’s first couple of arcade machines weren’t video games, but medal games, both released in 1983. Their first video game released in May of 1984 — the scrolling shooter Vulgus — and three others would follow that same year. There was SonSon, a combination platformer and shooting game, and Pirate Ship Higemaru, a maze game which took clear inspiration from Sega’s 1982 arcade game, Pengo.…