Challenging players to fly their space fighter through an array of twisty mazes in an attempt to reach the final goal – destroying the “brain” of an enemy rocket – SNK’s Vanguard is released in American arcades. This is one of the first coin-op video games to present the player with an option upon running out of “lives”: allow the game to end, or insert another quarter or token to continue from the last position. 
Centuri releases the arcade video game Pleiades (spelled correctly on the arcade cabinet, though the game identifies itself onscreen as “Pleiads”), licensed from Japanese company Tehkan International.
Konami introduces the arcade game Loco Motion in the United States, one of its earliest self-released coin-ops (most titles had previously been licensed through Stern).
Konami introduces the arcade game Time Pilot in the United States, where it becomes one of the company’s more prominent sleeper hits. Time Pilot is also licensed to Atari in some regions.
Konami introduces the arcade game Gyruss in the United States, a space shooter with a vaguely 3-D perspective and a thumping Bach-by-way-of-techno soundtrack.
Konami introduces the arcade game Track & Field in the United States, a multi-event game built around a summer Olympic theme. Due to the nature of the game’s control scheme, the Track & Field coin-ops take a huge amount of abuse as players pound the action buttons to determine the “intensity” of their on-screen athletes’ movement.