Asmik Ace, Inc. (Japanese: アスミック・エース株式会社, Hepburn: Asumikku ēsu kabushikigaisha), formerly Asmik Ace Entertainment, Inc. (アスミック・エース　エンタテインメント株式会社, Asumikku ēsu entateinmento Kabushiki gaisha) is a Japanese film production and distribution company. In the past, the company has distributed video games. It was formed in 1997 through a merger between the Asmik Corporation and Ace Entertainment, both of Japan. The name Asmik comes from its three founding companies: Ask (formerly ASK-Kodansha), Sumitomo and Kodansha. The company is headquartered on the third floor of the Lapiross Roppongi building in Minato, Tokyo, and is a wholly owned division of Jupiter Telecommunications (J:COM). Asmik Corporation was founded in 1985 as a subsidiary to the Sumitomo Corporation of Japan. Its focus was in the area of video games for the video game console market, specifically the NES. It quickly moved on to distribute motion pictures in Japan, and won several awards for doing so. It once had a North American subsidiary, Asmik Corporation of America. Ace Pictures Inc. was founded in 1981 as a division of Nippon Herald Films to produce Japanese films and distribute foreign art films. Several of its pictures earned awards and hold positions as some of the highest-grossing films in Japan. Asmik Ace Entertainment has produced games for the Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PC Engine, Mega Drive/Genesis, Super NES, Nintendo 64, and GameCube, and distributes high quality films for the Japanese movie market. Asmik Ace Entertainment also distributed a number of DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation films to Japanese cinemas.