Retrospectively, critics have praised Radar Scope for its gameplay and design being a unique iteration upon the Space Invaders template.

Galaxian, in turn, was based on Space Invaders hardware, replacing the more intensive bitmap rendering system with a hardware sprite rendering system that animates sprites over a scrolling background, allowing more detailed graphics, faster gameplay, and a scrolling animated starfield background.

He asked his father in-law and Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi to develop a new game that could be retrofitted into the unsold Radar Scope cabinets.

[9]: 103–105 [11] Yamauchi polled the company's entire talent pool for fresh game design concepts that could satisfy Nintendo of America's needs.

The result was Shigeru Miyamoto's debut as lead game designer with Donkey Kong, starring Mario and released in 1981.

[9]: 106 [11][8] The Donkey Kong conversion kits consisting of ROM chips and cabinet marquee graphics were shipped to Nintendo of America and installed on more than 2,000 Radar Scope machines by a small team including Arakawa and his wife.

Out of an estimated 3,000 arcade cabinets shipped to the United States alone, 1,000 were sold to an underwhelming reception and the remaining 2,000 sat unsold in Nintendo's warehouse.

[11] The salvage of unsold Radar Scope hardware—by creating Donkey Kong and Mario—provided the company with its first international smash hit and a resulting windfall of $280 million.

[9]: 111 [13] In a 1998 retrospective review, Earl Green of Allgame said the 3D perspective is a unique idea for the time, and that Radar Scope improved the trend of countless games styled after the archetypal Space Invaders.

In truth, though, Radar Scope wasn't a poor game by any measure; its crimes were instead a simple matter of timing, and of being the focus of Nintendo's ill-conceived ambitions.