Data East’s approach to early NES releases was simple: lean heavily into arcade ports. While nearly every developer that was publishing on the NES at the time were already adapting their arcade games, other companies, such as Konami with Gradius and Capcom with Ghosts ‘n Goblins, did not advertise their games as such. Instead, they left out any mention of the arcade versions, instead opting to portray it as a brand new home console experience. Data East, on the other hand, added a big yellow label with “Arcade Hit!” on all of their boxes.
There are several potential reasons that they made this decision. Data East was really well known for their arcade games, and it’s possible they were confident that familiarity would be the main selling point for their titles. It could be that they wanted to differentiate themselves from other third-party developers by targeting a different market, those who weren’t sure if they wanted an NES until they saw some more familiar games. Regardless, this strategy certainly paid off. Data East was one of the most prolific publishers for the NES, especially in its early days.
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