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Dēta Īsuto kabushiki gaisha, also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game, pinball and electronic engineering company. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, and released 150 video game titles. At one time, the company had annual sales of 20 billion yen in the United States alone but eventually went bankrupt. The American subsidiary, Data East USA, was headquartered in San Jose, California.Compute, Volume 12, Issues 1-5. Small System Services, 1990. 52. Retrieved from Google Books on May 17, 2010. Its main headquarters were located in the Suginami ward of Tokyo." データイースト." Data East. December 8, 2002. Retrieved on October 20, 2009.
The majority of Data East's video games, its trademark, and its logo are currently owned by G-Mode, a mobile-focused subsidiary of the video game publisher Marvelous. A small number of Data East video games are owned by other companies, notably Paon DP.
Data East established its U.S. division in June 1979. In 1980, Data East published Astro Fighter which became its first major arcade game title. While making games, Data East released a series of interchangeable systems compatible with its arcade games, notably the DECO Cassette System which soon became infamous among users due to technical problems. Data East dropped the DECO Cassette by 1985. It was the first interchangeable arcade system board, developed in 1979 and released in 1980, inspiring later arcade conversion systems such as Sega's Convert-a-Game in 1981 and the Nintendo VS. System in 1984. Data East abandoned the DECO Cassette System in favor of dedicated , bringing Data East greater success over the next several years, starting with the hit title BurgerTime (1982).
In 1981, three staff members of Data East founded Technōs Japan, who then supported Data East for a while before becoming completely independent.
Data East distributed three major arcade hits in North America between 1984 and 1985: the fighting game Karate Champ (1984), the beat 'em up title Kung-Fu Master (1984), and the run and gun video game Commando (1985). These three titles catapulted Data East to the forefront of the amusement arcade industry in the mid-1980s. Karate Champ, Kung-Fu Master and Commando were the top three highest-grossing arcade games of 1985 in the United States. Karate Champ was the first successful fighting game, and one of the most influential to modern fighting game standards. Some of Data East's other most famous coin-op arcade games from its 1980s heyday include Heavy Barrel, Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja, Sly Spy, RoboCop, Bump 'n' Jump, Trio The Punch – Never Forget Me..., Karnov and Atomic Runner Chelnov.
Data East also purchased licenses to manufacture and sell arcade games created by other companies. Some of its licensed games included , Kung Fu Master and Vigilante, all licensed from Irem, and Commando, licensed from Capcom. It had a brief stint as a Neo Geo arcade licensee in the mid-1990s, starting with Spinmaster and co-published with SNK.
Data East entered the video game console market in 1986 with the release of B-Wings for the Famicom. In North America, the subsidiary Data East USA was the first licensee announced for the Nintendo Entertainment System and consequently was one of the four original third-party publishers to release games for the console in late 1986. In Japan, Data East would become a licensee for several home systems over the years, notably the Famicom (1986), PC Engine (1988), Game Boy (1990), Mega Drive (1991), Super NES (1991), Neo Geo (1993), Sega Saturn (1995), PlayStation (1996), WonderSwan (1999) and Neo Geo Pocket Color (1999). Several of Data East's video games series, such as Tantei Jingūji Saburō, Glory of Hercules and Metal Max, were created specifically for home consoles. Data East had a good relationship with Ocean Software to publish titles for the American market throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, even before Ocean started its own American arm led by Data East boss Ray Musci.
Amidst plummeting sales across the entire pinball market, Data East chose to exit the pinball business and sold the factory to Sega in 1994. At the time of the buyout by Sega, Data East Pinball was the world's second-largest pinball manufacturer, holding 25 percent of the market. Although all of Data East's pinball games were developed in the United States, several were released in Japan by the parent company.
For the following three years, Data East sold negative ion generators, continued to develop compatible devices for NTT DoCoMo phones and licensed some of its old video games to other companies. Nonetheless, the company's restructuring efforts were not enough to put back the financial problems brought by the 1990s. Consequently, in April 2003, Data East filed for bankruptcy and was 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.
Data East's former building in Ogikubo, which was located in an area largely residential, was demolished around 2014 and replaced by an apartment or condominium construction. Founder Tetsuo Fukuda was still active in 2017 as president of a medical company he established in December 2015 at the age of 76.
Legacy
Most of Data East's video game library was acquired in February 2004 by G-Mode, a Japanese mobile gaming company that is now owned by Marvelous.Smith, David. "G-Mode Buys Up Data East Catalog", 1UP.com. February 2004. [3] G-Mode also owns the Data East trademark. However, some games are owned by Paon DP instead of G-Mode, notably Karnov, Chelnov, Windjammers, the Glory of Heracles series and the trilogy, while the rights to the series Metal Max and Jake Hunter currently are the properties of Kadokawa Games and Arc System Works, respectively. The RoboCop titles related to Data East were acquired by D4 Enterprise in September 2010. The other properties of Data East were transferred to the asset management company of the Fukuda family. The latter sued Nintendo twice during the 2000s for patent infringement, but both cases were dismissed.
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External links
Categories: Defunct Video Game Companies Of Japan, Japanese Companies Established In 1976, Video Game Companies Established In 1976, Video Game Companies Disestablished In 2003, Companies That Have Filed For Bankruptcy In Japan, Pinball Manufacturers, Video Game Development Companies, Japanese Companies Disestablished In 2003
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