Gaming Ads: Agetec & Alston Information Research

Originally Agetec was founded as ASCII Entertainment, the American branch of ASCII Corp. I've got a bunch of ads for ASCII and we'll take a look at those in about a month. Agetec spun off the company in 1998 so there aren't too many ads for the '90s. The publisher focused on bringing Japanese console games to the U.S. market and a few of its better known games include Armored Core, RPG Maker, Fighter Maker, and King's Field. It also published some SNK games for the PlayStation and/or Dreamcast, such as Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Metal Slug X, a couple of The King of Fighters games, and The Last Blade 2.

I don't believe Agetec is still in business though I cannot find any sources stating they went out of business. The last retail product it published appears to have been Way of the Samurai 3 for the PlayStation 3 in 2009. It continued to publish after that with a few Nintendo 3DS digital titles on eShop with the last one being released in 2013.

Alston Information Research was primarily a hardware company that made gamepads and distributed Bit Corporation's LCD handheld system Gamate in North America. The basic design of Gamate is reminiscent of the Game Gear but the system's graphics and gameplay are more like the single game LCD handhelds from Tiger Electronics. Based on the ads it retailed for $69.95 while the game cartridges were priced at $15.95.

Agetec albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Alston Information Research albums: Facebook - Google Photos