J.Y. Company

J.Y. Company
Origin	Taiwan
Years	1989?-at least 2006
Consoles	Famicom, Game Boy Color, Super Famicom, Neo-Geo Pocket, Game Boy Advance
First game	Mortal Kombat (?)
Last game	Confirmed: Final Fight 3 Unconfirmed: Monster Dragon Tactics Card
Published games by	Hummer Team, Ei-How Yang, Good Life (?), Vast Fame (?)

J.Y. Company (Chinese: 晶太) or simply JY, was a publisher of various bootleg games, most notably Famicom games. They are best known for publishing many of Hummer Team's games. They appear to have been active from at least 1989 to possibly the mid 2000s.

Overview

J.Y. Company is mostly known for publishing Famicom ports that were developed by Hummer Team and Ei-How Yang. These ports are often regarded as being higher quality than most other bootleg Famicom ports. Many of these ports are often released with an extra hack of itself, usually on the same PCB as the original game.

They also made a lot of multicarts, the most common are the 4 in 1. Some had more or less games but almost all of their multis don't have repeats. As well as this, many of them include late NES/Famicom releases rarely found on other multicarts such as Rainbow Islands and Mitsume Ga Tooru.

J.Y. Company hardly ever hacked other publisher's titles. From 1994 to 1998, only two titles they weren't responsible for appeared on their multicarts: Super Donkey Kong 2 and Master Fighter II.

Often in their games, there's a screen containing their logo that can be accessed through a cheat code. Their logo may occasionally show up in the background of certain games as well.

History

J.Y. Company's earliest activities seems to point around 1989. During 1989 to 1993, they released pirated versions of licensed games under their own covers. They were also responsible for a few Mario hacks such as 7 Grand Dad and Super Bros. 8. They also made the infamous Ball Series 11 in 1 multicart in 1990 which was subsequently reprinted almost every year during the 90s, albeit not by them after a while.

In late 1993, they started a new product line using their name to release mostly multicarts. In 1994, Hummer Team started developing games for J.Y. Company, the first games being Dragon Ball Z 2 and Mortal Kombat II. Around 1995, they've worked with Ei-How Yang but this didn't last very long, with only Mickey Mania 7 getting published while Contra Spirits never got a J.Y. Company release.

Around 1995-1996, one of their supposed competitors, Ka Sheng, has started releasing several J.Y. Company carts under their own line. It's presumed that this was a deal between the two for J.Y. Company to sell their games in territories where Ka Sheng had more of a holding in. (Notably, Russia and Eastern Europe countries) However, this only lasted for several cartridges and Ka Sheng would eventually make mapper hacks of J.Y. Company's games afterwards, suggesting that the deal was ended for unknown reasons.

J.Y. Company would request and provide funds to Hummer Team to make ports of popular games until 1998, when their relationship ended for unknown reasons. (It's been suggested that this is due to the Famicom market declining.) One of Hummer Team's games, The King of Fighters '96, was supposed to be released under J.Y. Company but ended up getting cut down and released by Ka Sheng instead. Afterwards, J.Y. Company started to release cheaper multicarts with common games, most of them sharing the same menu screen and the same games. These were likely done by a subcontractor since they lack all the technology used in the previous cartridges. These were all released under various IDs.

Around this time, there were Game Boy Color cartridges being released using a label style similar to J.Y. Company's SC-xx carts. Notably, one of them use the QQ ID that J.Y. Company has also used. Some of these carts also contain games that Good Life have developed for and the single cart releases of those used similar PCBs. Several Super Famicom and Game Boy Advance multicarts have also used a similar label style. It's possible that J.Y. Company has attempted to release games for other consoles, as other companies were more interested in the Game Boy Color and the 16-bit consoles during this time. The Game Boy Advance multicarts also seem to have been programmed by or someone who used to work for Vast Fame, as the ROMs mentions Vast Fame's name.

They ceased their Famicom activities in the early 2000s, selling their remaining PCBs to a Chinese distributor. It's unknown when J.Y. Company fully stopped their activities; the latest possible Game Boy Advance multicart contains the American version of Summon Night: Swordcraft Story which came out in 2006.

Acronyms

J.Y. Company has used a few aliases, most notably from 1997 and on-wards.

• EL - Used after 1997 for some Hummer Team's games and a few multicarts.
• SC - One of J.Y.'s aliases used after 1998. (SA, SB, SD were also used.)
• QQ - Used to retail unsold stock of JY multicarts, was also used for Game Boy Color multicarts.
• VIPxx, Nxx, Kxx (where xx is a number) - IDs around in the 2000.
• YY - Used for board code and one release (YY-076), likely a typo in the latter case.

Games Published

Original Productions

Name	Released	Description	Cart No.
Aladdin (阿拉丁)	1995	A port of Capcom's Aladdin for the SNES. It was re-released under numbered sequels and had a DIP switch variant hack known as Popeye II - Travels in Persia.	First print had no ID. (JY-025, JY-026, JY-027)
Donkey Kong Country 4	1997	A port of Donkey Kong Country. It had a DIP switch variant hack known as Jungle Book 2.	JY-033 (JY-032)
Dragon Ball Z - Super Butoden 2	1994	A port of Dragon Ball Z - Super Butoden 2.	First print had no ID. (JY-012)
Final Fight 3	1998	A port of Final Fight 3. J.Y. Company's final original game, also the last game they've released from Hummer Team.	JY-116
Mickey Mania 7 (米奇吉鼠)	1996	A port of the SNES version of Mickey Mania. The only Ei-How Yang-developed game published by J.Y. Company. J.Y. Company also released a hacked version called China Rabbit Baby.	JY-077 (JY-076)
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers III	1995	A port of the SNES version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. A hack was later released called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie IV.	JY-059 (JY-073)
Mortal Kombat II (真人快打II)	1994	A port of the SNES version of Mortal Kombat. This may have been J.Y. Company's first release from Hummer Team. It was also hacked and released first as Mortal Kombat III Turbo under J.Y. Company.	First prints had no IDs. (JY-011, JY-024, JY-026 (A/B))
Mortal Kombat II Special (眞人快打II 特別版)	1995	A port of the SNES version of Mortal Kombat II. It had a DIP switch variant known as Mortal Kombat III Special that duplicates the roster. J.Y. Company later released a hacked version called Mortal Kombat 3 Special 56 Peoples.	JY-029 (JY-030, JY-074)
Shin Samurai Spirits 2 (真侍魂II)	1996	A port of Samurai Shodown II.	JY-083 (TP-083)
Super Mario World	1995	A port of Super Mario World.	JY-028 (028)
Tekken 2	1996	A port of the PlayStation version of Tekken. It had a DIP switch variant called Battle Arena Toshiden.	JY-092 (JY-091)
Tiny Toon Adventures 6	1997	A port of Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break.	JY-115 (EL-002)

Hacks

J.Y. Company are responsible for numerous hacks, they are probably behind more but here are the confirmed ones so far:

Name	Released	Description	Cart No.
7 Grand Dad (原始瑪莉VII)	1992	A hack of The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy.
Crayon Shin-Chan II (蠟筆小新)	1995	A hack of Bio Miracle Upkette Upa.	JY-035
Domkey Kong	1995	A hack of Tiny Toon Adventures. Was later re-released to fix the obvious typo in the title.
FIFA International Soccer '95	1995	A hack of J-League Winning Goal. '96 and '97 versions exist, also made by them. It is curiously copyrighted to Electronnic Suki.	'95: N/A '96: JY-060 '97: EL-001
Lion King	1995	A hack of Wacky Races.
Street Fighter III Mari Street Fighter III Turbo		A title hack of Super Fighter III. J.Y. Company released other variants that would duplicate the roster and add extra characters. Since J.Y. Company was the only one responsible for these hacks, it's unknown if they were also behind the original release of Super Fighter III.	First print had no ID. (JY-042 - 56 People cover)
Super Aladdin: The Return of Jafar	1996	A hack of The Lord of King (The Japanese version of Astyanax).	JY-078 (TP-078)
Super Bros. 8 (大榔頭瑪莉叔叔) (超級兄弟8代 大榔頭瑪莉)	1992	A hack of Don Doko Don 2.
Super Mario & Sonik 2	1994, 1996	A hack of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2. It later got rereleased in 1996 that fixed a bug that caused the game to be unfinishable.
Wario Land 2	Late 1998	A hack of Kirby's Adventure.	SC127

Unconfirmed Games

Name	Console	Released	Description	Cart No.
BB Car (BB车)	Famicom	1991	Unsold PCBs were liquidated with a J.Y. Company cover. It is unknown what role they had originally with this game.	JY040
Mario IV (超級兄弟IV) (摇滾瑪莉IV)	Famicom	1991 or 1992	The cart label and the title screen is very similar in style to 7 Grand Dad. The former Chinese title also translates to "Super Bros.", which is rather similar to Super Bros. 8's title.
Monster Dragon Tactics Card (怪獸超武鬥 VS 卡片大對決)	Game Boy Color	2001	The PCB is similar to the suspected Game Boy Color multicarts. It has also shown up on some of those carts.
Pocket Monsters Stadium King of Fighters (Bronze) (怪物競技格鬥王(銅))	Game Boy Color	2000	The PCB is similar to the suspected Game Boy Color multicarts. It has also shown up on some of those carts.
World Hero (英雄傳)	Famicom		JY-048 shows a clean image of a later reprint's label, suggesting J.Y. Company at least had access to the original art. The World Hero carts that used this label often had the new cover placed over the pre-existing one. It's unknown if J.Y. Company had a role in the original release however.	JY-120, a late reprint

Unreleased Games

These games were funded by J.Y. Company but released by different publishers. They also still contain the J.Y. Company logo easter egg, or part of it.

Name	Released	Description	Cart No.
Contra Spirits	1995	A port of Contra III: The Alien Wars. It got released by Hosenkan instead. This is the only other Ei-How Yang-developed game intended for J.Y. Company.	H-C1
The King of Fighters '96	1998	A port of The King of Fighters '96. It got released by Ka Sheng instead.	NT6101

Trivia

• Hummer Team was credited as Jing Tay Team in Tiny Toon Adventures 6, with "Jing Tay" referring to J.Y. Company.
• J.Y. Company was the first to make copies of Kirby's Adventure although they've hacked it into Wario Land 2.
• Both Mortal Kombat II Special and Final Fight 3 seem to not be based off of their finished versions but rather prototype versions. This implies J.Y. Company had access to the prototype versions of their games and handed them to Hummer Team to port but it's unknown how they've gotten the prototypes. It's known however that prototypes and test builds were circulating on Japanese BBS channels around the same time.

Gallery

Typical J.Y. multicart. The overall same design was used from 1994 to 1998.

SC-128 with Final Fight 3.

SC-130.

QQ-9099, based on JY-099.

QQ-901 Game Boy Color multicart.

Super Famicom cart in a similar style as the QQ-901 cart.

Another Super Famicom cart. The soccer ball matches the one seen on JY-014.

Z-A1U105-49. Note the border around the images and the use of WordArt for the title.

External link

• List of known JY-XXX carts.