Atari released the Star Wars arcade cabinet in 1983. The machine topped the Play Meter arcade chart for street locations in October 1983 within the United States. Game Machine listed Star Wars as the most successful upright unit in Japan during the 1st of November 1983.
Work began on the project in 1981 under the working title Warp Speed before Atari secured a licensing agreement with Lucasfilm. Ed Rotberg initially led development after having worked on the vector-based Battlezone simulator for the United States Army. He departed the company in October 1981 following the completion of early prototypes.
Atari released the Star Wars arcade cabinet in 1983 using a unique hardware design that rendered 3D color vector graphics without relying on raster-based pixel displays common at the time. Developers used yellow grid lines to render the Death Star surface which spelled out messages like May the force be with you during odd-numbered waves. Even-numbered waves displayed names of developers within those same grid lines as a hidden tribute to the team.
Each wave consisted of three distinct attack phases that culminated in the destruction of the Death Star. Phase one involved dogfighting Darth Vader and enemy TIE fighters near the space station. Phase two required flying across the surface of the Death Star to reach its equatorial trench while phase three forced navigation of the trench until firing a proton torpedo into the exhaust port target.
David Palmer scored 31,660,614 points in about seven hours during the 1986 Tournament using initial shields only. This score remains the world record to this day according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Machines could be converted into The Empire Strikes Back via a conversion kit sold in 1985.