Taito announced today that two revivals of classic arcade games, Space Invaders Extreme (NDS, PSP) and Arkanoid DS, will be released at North America retailers on June 17.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders, Space Invaders Extreme reimagines the classic game in a faster, more intense fashion, blending classic shooter gameplay with weapon upgrades, enemy variant types, boss battles and other twists. The game also includes online multiplayer and leaderboards.

Arkanoid DS features the classic brick-smashing gameplay expanded with three game modes, two or four person multiplayer, and unlockable levels and backgrounds. Unfortunately, the Arkanoid paddle—a classic-style dial controller which fits into the system's GBA slot—is currently not slated for a North American release.

Arkanoid DS and both the PSP and DS versions of Space Invaders Extreme will be priced at $19.99 when they hit shelves this coming June.

Edge Magazine has conducted an interview with Tomohiro Nishikado and Fukio Mitsuji, designers of classic Taito arcade titles. Nishikado was responsible for the immortal Space Invaders and Mitsuji for the well-loved Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands. The responses from Nishikado in particular are fascinating for their perspective on just how differet game development was in his day.

"It was very a difficult process. The hardest part was the development of a microcomputer. Microcomputers were hardly used at that time in Japan, so we had to create one from scratch. I could almost say developing the microcomputer was harder than developing the game itself. These days, we have personal computers to rely on, but there was no programming environment back then. So I had to create everything by myself. I created a development device, wrote a part of the game that runs on it, and then created more devices along the way."

Also, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, there is actual concept art for the titular space invaders, which were inspired by H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Nishikado is not currently directly involved in any development projects, while Mitsuji teaches game design.