◉◉maru Disc Station on MSX started and remained as a small subscription magazine, closer to zines but still too official and fully-featured to qualify there. You got an included set of floppies with the game/media data on it, plus many pages featuring content write-ups (especially for demos of games from other studios featured in the volume) and notes from Compile staff.
This was also the case for Disc Station 98, which had a higher price-tag (reflecting the pricier PC-98 market) but generally the same format and content spread. Later on, Compile shifted away from showcasing competitors’ games and started debuting more fleshed out games of their own, exclusive to the series.
They put DS 98 on hold in 1992 and, almost a year later, started the Disc Station Vol. XX series, still on PC-98 but housed inside mooks instead. You still had subscriptions and fairly similar content, but Compile made Disc Station more of a premium product that you’d find in Japanese bookstores, not just game shops. This seems to have worked out quite well, bolstered by Compile’s success with Madou Monogatari and especially Puyo Puyo bankrolling the expansion. It all went downhill once they over-expanded and mismanaged themselves into bankruptcy; I wonder if Disc Station was ever a loss leader or successful despite the company’s downfall.