IPM Invader

Released in January 1979. Known as the poor mans version of "Space Invaders".

Irem was founded in 1974 as 'IPM Corp.' in Hakusan, Japan. Like most of their contemporaries, the company's initial purpose was to produce and rent out electronic leisure machinery to various sections of the entertainment industry. With the advent of arcade videogaming and the hugely popular "Space Invaders" (1978), Irem opted to move into the development and manufacturing of their own titles. They rapidly released their own 'invader clone', the aptly named IPM Invader.

IPM Invader was a crude and shameless copycat of Taito's milestone, but yet the sheer popularity of arcade rooms at the time saw the game do well enough to convince the company that games were a viable business opportunity.
In 1979 they changed their corporate name to Irem Corp., an acronym for 'International Rental Electronics Machines'. This would stand until the mid-80s, when it would then be changed to 'Innovations in Recreational Electronic Media'.
For their first few years, Irem's output was average at best. If anything it could almost be considered poor: random invader clones and poorly produced action games disappeared amongst the numerous other titles of the day.