2003: Data East bids farewell
BurgerTime, RoboCop, Karate Champ…these are just a few of the incredibly popular arcade games that were created by Data East, a Japanese electronics company founded by Tetsuo Fukuda in 1976. (Fukuda would go on to help create titles in the Metal Max series, as well as a few Guilty Gear games.) While Data East had success with creating their own games, their licensing options were even more fruitful. For example, they licensed and published a version of Dragon’s Lair for the SNES in 1992. They also licensed and distributed Commando for Capcom.
