Taito

Taito do Brasil was established in 1972 as a São Paulo subsidiary of Japan’s Taito Corporation and became a leading producer of domestically manufactured pinball machines and coin-operated arcade equipment for the Brazilian market, leveraging high import tariffs to supply competitively priced, locally made titles to a growing arcade audience. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s the company released culturally resonant and visually distinctive machines—including Oba Oba, Gemini 2000, Shock, Cavaleiro Negro and Fire Action—that blended traditional mechanical gameplay with bold Brazilian artwork and localized re-themes of foreign designs, earning notice from players and collectors. Economic shifts, changing import regulations and increased global competition led Taito do Brasil to cease pinball production in the mid-1980s, but its innovative approach and memorable designs remain important chapters in Latin American pinball history and continue to attract interest from vintage pinball collectors, preservationists and arcade historians.