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| Former type | Public |
|---|---|
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
| Founded | 1976 |
| Defunct | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Suginami, Tokyo, Japan |
| Industry | Computer and video game industry |
| Products | List of games released by Data East |
Data East Corporation (データイースト株式会社 Dēta Īsuto Kabushikigaisha) also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game company. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, when it declared bankruptcy. Their main headquarters were located in Suginami, Tokyo,[1] Their American subsidiary, Data East USA, had been headquartered in different cities of the Silicon Valley throughout the time.
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History
Data East was founded by Tetsuo Fukuda on April 20, 1976 [2] as an electronic engineering company which focused on integrating interchangeable tapes inside arcade game devices, allowing video games operators to replace a game from a machine without having to replace the cabinet itself. Realizing the money that could be made within the interactive content, Data East began developing arcade video games in 1978 and established a U.S division in 1979, after most of their chief competitors like Sega and Taito had already established a market presence. While making games, Data East released a series of interchangeable systems compatible with their arcade games, notably the DECO Cassette System and the Multi Conversion Kit, but these products soon became infamous among their users due to their numerous technical problems. By 1985 Data East had shifted away from interchangeability to concentrate themselves on video games only.
Data East proved to be one of the more successful and long-lasting companies in the business, surviving the video game crash of 1983 in reasonably good shape and going on to release dozens of games for both arcade and home console systems over the next two decades. Their first video game was Super Break, which was developed and released in 1978. Some of their most famous games from their 1980s heyday included Karate Champ, Heavy Barrel, Burgertime, Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja, Sly Spy, RoboCop, Bump 'n' Jump, Karnov and Atomic Runner Chelnov. Data East also purchased licenses to manufacture and sell arcade games created by other companies. Their most successful licensed games included Kid Niki: Radical Ninja, Kung Fu Master and Vigilante, all licensed from Irem, and Commando, licensed from Capcom. They had a brief stint as a Neo-Geo arcade licensee in the mid-1990s.
Data East also made pinball tables from 1987 through 1996, and included innovations such as the first pinball to have stereo sound, the first usage of a small dot matrix display in Checkpoint along with the first usage of a big DMD (192x64) in Maverick. In designing pinball machines they showed a strong preference for using high-profile (but expensive) licensed properties, rather than creating totally original machines, which did not help the financial difficulties the company began experiencing from 1990 on. Some of the properties that Data East licensed for their pinball tables included Guns N' Roses, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Batman, RoboCop, The Simpsons, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Data East is the only company that manufactured custom pinball games (e.g. for Aaron Spelling, the movie Richie Rich, or Michael Jordan), though these were basically mods of existing or soon to be released pinball machines (e.g. Lethal Weapon 3). The pinball division was created in 1985 by purchasing the pinball division of Stern Electronics and its factory and assets. Amidst plummeting sales across the entire pinball market, Data East chose to exit the pinball business and sold the factory to Sega in 1996. By the end of the 1990s, the company's American division, Data East USA, had been liquidated and Data East had ceased to exist outside of Japan.
Unable to escape their mounting financial problems, Data East filed for reorganization in 1999 and resumed making video games. For the following three and a half years, Data East sold negative ion generators and licensed some of their old games to other companies; all of this in hope of collecting enough money to be able to make video games again and return to the competition. Nonetheless, the company's restructuring efforts weren't enough to put back the financial problems brought by the 1990s and in April 2003 Data East filed for bankruptcy and were finally declared bankrupt by a Tokyo district court on June 25, 2003.The news was released to the public two weeks later, on July 8.[2]
Most of Data East's intellectual properties were acquired in February 2004 by G-Mode, a Japanese mobile game content provider.[3] However some of Data East's assets, including Karnov,[4] Chelnov [5] and the Glory of Heracles series are owned by Paon Corporation instead of G-Mode. Likewise, G-Mode does not own rights to the Metal Max series and the Tantei Jingūji Saburō series which were retained by Createch and WorkJam respectively. Ownership rights is unknown for some of the DECO Cassette games as well as for games that were created from licensed properties (such as Robocop and Captain America and the Avengers).
In September 2009, Majesco Entertainment has announced that it would release a collection of arcade games from Data East called Data East Arcade Classics for the Wii console under license from G-Mode.
Products
- For a list of video and pinball games released by Data East, see List of games released by Data East.
References
- ^ "データイースト." Data East. December 8, 2002. Retrieved on October 20, 2009.
- ^ a b Data East goes bankrupt - WonderSwan News at GameSpot
- ^ Smith, David. "G-Mode Buys Up Data East Catalog", 1UP.com. February 2004. [1]
- ^ "Data East History - DATA EAST GAMES". G-Mode. http://www.dataeastgames.com/history.html. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
- ^ "チェルノブ : Wii(R) バーチャルコンソール メガドライブ 公式サイト". SEGA of Japan. September 11, 2007. http://vc.sega.jp/vc_chelnov/. Retrieved 2008-06-02.
- Neomega forums posting on Data East's closure, July 8
External links
- Official website in Japanese and English (maintained by the Internet Archives Wayback Machine)
- G-Mode's Data East webpage (or alternate website)
- The Data East Pinball Archive
- Data East Corporation profile at MobyGames
- DEEP: The Data East Emustatus Project
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