From contemporary reviews, Rosalind Russell of Record Mirror compared the group to Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk stating that the group "might resign themselves to coming a poor second", finding that the group's ethnicity and accents "may put off this nation's xenophobes. But who needs the UK? In the disco world we're small stakes anyway: the sons of Nihon are probably casting their eyes to the States and Germany."
Track listing
Original pressing
US pressing
Personnel
Yellow Magic Orchestra – arrangements, electronics
- Haruomi Hosono – bass guitar, synth bass, synthesizers, production, mixing engineer <small>(credited as "Harry Hosono" for latter two)</small>
- Ryuichi Sakamoto – synthesizers, piano, electric piano, percussion, orchestration
- Yukihiro Takahashi – vocals, drums, electronic drums, marimba, percussion
Guest musicians
- Hideki Matsutake – Microcomposer programming
- Chris Mosdell – lyrics
- Shun'ichi "Tyrone" Hashimoto – vocoded vocals on "Simoon"
- Masayoshi Takanaka – electric guitar on "Cosmic Surfin'" and "La femme chinoise"
- Tomoko Nunoi <small>(uncredited on earliest issues)</small> – French narration <small>(credited as "Sexy Voice")</small> on "La femme chinoise"
Staff
- Kunihiko Murai – executive producer
- Norio Yoshizawa & Atsushi Saito – recording engineers
- Shunsuke Miyasumi – recording coordinator
- Masako Hikasa & Akira Ikuta – management
- Aijiro Wakita – design, art director
- Kazuo Hakamada – illustrations
US version alternative staff
- Minako Yoshida – vocals on "Yellow Magic (Tong Poo)"
- Tommy LiPuma – supervisor
- Al Schmitt – mixing engineer
- Mike Reese – mastering engineer
- Roland Young – art director
- Amy Nagasawa & Chuck Beeson – design
- Lou Beach – front cover art
- Masayoshi Sukita – back cover art
Charts
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center"
! Year
! Release
! Chart
! Peak position
! Weeks
! Sales
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1978
| LP
| Japan Oricon LP Chart
| 20
| 73
| 187,000
|-
| Cassette
| Japan Oricon CT Chart
| 81
| 21
| rowspan="2" |
|-
| US R&B Albums and entering the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart.
! Weeks
! Sales
|-
|align="left"|UK Singles Chart
|align="center"|17
|11
|
|-
|align="left"|US Billboard Hot 100 The "terse video-game funk" sounds of "Computer Game" influenced the emerging electro and hip hop music genres; and as having a strong influence on 1980s hip hop and pop music.
The song was also an influence on early techno, specifically Detroit techno, for which it was included in Carl Craig's compilation album Kings of Techno (2006). The song also influenced Sheffield's bleep techno music; Warp's third record, "Testone" (1990) by Sweet Exorcist, defined Sheffield's techno sound, by making playful use of sampled sounds from "Computer Game" along with dialogues from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Jennifer Lopez's hit "I'm Real" (2001), and the original version of Mariah Carey's "Loverboy" (for the 2001 film soundtrack Glitter), which was released as part of the 2020 compilation album The Rarities on October 2, 2020, also sampled the song.
See also
- 1978 in Japanese music