Necroing this thread because I missed something: the Funco article mentions the founder by name: David R. Pomije. Looks like he launched GameInformer too. Has anyone tried reaching out to him? (Looks like his social media sites are abandoned.)
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Necroing this thread because I missed something: the Funco article mentions the founder by name: David R. Pomije. Looks like he launched GameInformer too. Has anyone tried reaching out to him? (Looks like his social media sites are abandoned.)
So in another YYB1 thread on this site we found that out and did in fact try to contact him but to no prevail. We also talked to the former CEO of Game Informer and he wasn't much help either.
Thanks for the effort you put in over there, co. Is that one more of an active research effort?
Not as active as it was last year, but yeah, we did a lot of work over in that thread.
I wouldn't mind asking David a few questions, but I'm skeptical that he'd have much to offer. The man almost certainly responsible for the Beebiss listing was Robert Schwartz. And when I talked to him last year, he was not interested in discussing the matter.
Thanks for the effort you put in over there, co. Is that one more of an active research effort?
Not as active as it was last year, but yeah, we did a lot of work over in that thread.
I wouldn't mind asking David a few questions, but I'm skeptical that he'd have much to offer. The man almost certainly responsible for the Beebiss listing was Robert Schwartz. And when I talked to him last year, he was not interested in discussing the matter.
The biggest question to ask David is how Funco compiled their lists early on. That's what I would like to know (though most of us think Funco originally copied Play It Again).
"I have some insight. In the late eighties and into the nineties, I ran a small video store. Nintendo was the hottest game in town, and we would have to compete with stores like Blockbuster by relying on games that "weren't out yet". For example, we rented tapes of Super Mario 3 long before it's release in the states. We'd loan out these dongles called Honeybees for the customers to make the games work. We had several companies across the states who would get us new games from Japan. Here is the honest reality about how it was back then - we didn't know that some games would come out in other countries and not here. When we got a new game from Japan - we just assumed we got a game that just wasn't out yet. We had a game we called "Mr. Head" that was a popular title that turned out to really be called Moai Man. If we needed a game translated, we relied on the neighborhood Asian restaurants. We shared some of these names back and forth with each other when we were ordering and creating lists. It's really that simple. If someone wanted a game from our list, we made sure to sell them a Honeybee. Again, not having any idea that it would never get a release in the USA. Do I remember Yeah Yeah Beebis? Of course I do, that was one of the titles that we'd rent. It was a game that required the running pad. I remember because it became a little bit of catch phrase in the store. "Watch the desk, I'm going to the restroom" - "Yeah, yeah beebis, whatever" - Richard"
The Honey Bee does indeed exist. i was tripped up by the term "dongle" because it's something I usually only associate with PCs. But after googling a bit more I found what I remembered from the 80s: famicomworld.com/system/converters/honeybee-family-adaptor/
It looks like there were a couple of other models. Not sure what the difference was other than cosmetic. I did not have one because damn if I'd know where to get Japanese games back then.
It's not impossible that even as far back as the NES days some shops were selling Japanese games. Although it's not something I saw myself until the very early days of Saturn where Game Gallery started selling Japanese Saturn games and later Japanese Playstation games. So I am not sure how common Japanese NES games were in shops. I am from a major city and I didn't really see anything of the sort back then. But I'm sure you could get them if you looked in the right places.
I'm not saying this person is lying. Because the Honey Bee is a real device. Alternatively, some games like Gyromite had an adapter built in that could be taken out. If your game has three screws in the back, there's a Famicom adapter in there and you might be able to get something nice for it on Ebay.
What bugs me here is that this person deleted the post instead of explaining himself further if asked. It's not as if what he did was criminal. Even if Nintendo somehow considered renting out the Japanese version of Mario 3 as breaking street date for the NA release, it's ludicrous to think they'd even give a damn now. And the converters were not illegal either as far as I know. So I have no idea why this person would delete the post if what they were saying is true. Perhaps a "They don't believe me and I can't deal with the negative replies" situation.
Also, he's calling it "Yeah Yeah Beebis" so we have to assume someone translated for him. Possibly a Japanese person as the poster said that they asked for help from Asian restaurant workers. If that Japanese person was not well versed in English then the translation may not look right in English. However, the deleted post really bugs me. As does the fact that it's just too close to the actual legend itself and doesn't really provide any new info. It's a power pad game that wasn't released outside of Japan. That's the path we're already on. I'd love to ask if he ever played it or can verify that the cartridges are the same.
There was that person on the wiki page that claimed they had the game. But conveniently it broke. Because stuff like this always gets broken, lost or stolen so proof can't be posted. I believe that was the person who said it was Ufouria. I don't buy that either. It's too convenient that it broke and was thrown away. I'd buy that if other people had come forward saying they had the game as well. You'd think with Youtube and everything someone would see info about this mystery and provide proof that the cartridge existed. That's why I don't believe the title "Yeah Yeah Beebiss 1" actually appeared on any carts and was some kind of mistranslation regarding another game. Likely Rai Rai! Baby Kyonshi no Amida Daibōken.
necroposting because I believe this theory to be the most likely. There's also the fact that all of the Japanese Family Trainer games have English instructions in their manuals.
Game stores imported games. It wasn't that strange a practice. Just off the top of my head Joe from Game Sack on YouTube sometimes brings up stories of buying European Mega Drive games and playing them on his Genesis back in the early 90s
Game stores imported games. It wasn't that strange a practice. Just off the top of my head Joe from Game Sack on YouTube sometimes brings up stories of buying European Mega Drive games and playing them on his Genesis back in the early 90s
Also, there were at least a few Sega games that would detect the region of the system and change the language accordingly. Super Wonder Boy: Monster World for the Master System, Super Fantasy Zone for the Mega Drive, and Puyo Puyo for the Game Gear all have English versions that appear when you play them on non-Japanese systems. The early English scripts are noticeably different than the final international releases. Super Wonder Boy: Monster World gets changed to "Super Wonder Boy: Monster Land" instead of "Wonder Boy in Monster Land". This version is also less censored than the final international release, as alcoholic drinks are still called "cocktail" and "beer" instead of "ale" and "mead". The early English script of Super Fantasy Zone is much darker than the final international release, as words such as "corpse", "slaughter", and "murder" are used in the intro. If you put a Japanese Puyo Puyo cartridge into a non-Japanese Game Gear, it will start as "Puzlow Kids" instead of "Puyo Puyo", using a localization similar to the English arcade version.
Game stores imported games. It wasn't that strange a practice. Just off the top of my head Joe from Game Sack on YouTube sometimes brings up stories of buying European Mega Drive games and playing them on his Genesis back in the early 90s
When we spoke with Neil Levin, he confirmed that his company, Forest Hills Used Video games, would in fact import games from Japan for sale in the US. He even said he had contacts in Japan to facilitate these sales. And since it was his company that evolved in to Play It Again, (the company who ran the Beebiss ad) that would indeed lend some credibility to the "Mistranslated Japanese Game" theory. Of course, the only problem with that is the same guy also said he believes the Beebiss title was entirely made up by his partner, who had a habit for doing that very thing.
I'm not personally inclined to believe the story posted above about them selling and being familiar with Beebiss to the point of having in jokes about it. Even if it was a mistranslation, it would be unlikely that two independent game stores would translate the same title the same way, especially since the translation was so poor.
Game stores imported games. It wasn't that strange a practice. Just off the top of my head Joe from Game Sack on YouTube sometimes brings up stories of buying European Mega Drive games and playing them on his Genesis back in the early 90s
When we spoke with Neil Levin, he confirmed that his company, Forest Hills Used Video games, would in fact import games from Japan for sale in the US. He even said he had contacts in Japan to facilitate these sales. And since it was his company that evolved in to Play It Again, (the company who ran the Beebiss ad) that would indeed lend some credibility to the "Mistranslated Japanese Game" theory. Of course, the only problem with that is the same guy also said he believes the Beebiss title was entirely made up by his partner, who had a habit for doing that very thing.
I'm not personally inclined to believe the story posted above about them selling and being familiar with Beebiss to the point of having in jokes about it. Even if it was a mistranslation, it would be unlikely that two independent game stores would translate the same title the same way, especially since the translation was so poor.
It would actually be very likely, as the other store most likely just copied the list without checking it.
When we spoke with Neil Levin, he confirmed that his company, Forest Hills Used Video games, would in fact import games from Japan for sale in the US. He even said he had contacts in Japan to facilitate these sales. And since it was his company that evolved in to Play It Again, (the company who ran the Beebiss ad) that would indeed lend some credibility to the "Mistranslated Japanese Game" theory. Of course, the only problem with that is the same guy also said he believes the Beebiss title was entirely made up by his partner, who had a habit for doing that very thing.
I'm not personally inclined to believe the story posted above about them selling and being familiar with Beebiss to the point of having in jokes about it. Even if it was a mistranslation, it would be unlikely that two independent game stores would translate the same title the same way, especially since the translation was so poor.
It would actually be very likely, as the other store most likely just copied the list without checking it.
Yeah, I considered that too. But for that scenario to happen, someone would not only have to copy the list without checking, but also know what game "Yeah Yeah Beebiss I" was referring to. And since it's such a poor translation, it's unlikely they they would have made that connection. It took the lost media community years to connect those two titles, and that was with the power of many people making a concerted effort with the benefit of the internet.
It's not impossible for YYB1 to be a mistranslation, but we have more clues pointing to the copy trap theory. That being said, I don't consider the search concluded by any means. We were unable to reach anyone other than Neil (former business partner of Forrest Games) to verify anything.
I've said this in multiple threads already, but matching possible titles up isn't really going to conclude anything. To solve this mystery, another deep dive would have to be done on the game trading industry. Or, former Nintendo of America employees could be contacted to verify the games that were possibly going to be translated but weren't for whatever reason.
In short, a lot of YYB1 theories are based on speculation with zero inclination on the businesses we are looking closely at. Of course I'm one of the speculators, which is why I try to keep an open mind to any possibility. But I'm also into hard facts and research, and those two things are the only reason I think the copyright trap has traction. People put in the work to get clearer answers.
At any rate, I did try and contact Gail Tilden who was part of the translation department in Nintendo of America, but my message to her got filtered into spam I think (it remains unread to this day).
It might also be worth contacting the editors of these old computer/gaming magazines these ads were placed in. We contacted the founder of Game Informer because he knew David Pomije directly (Funco), but it didn't lead to much.
It's not impossible for YYB1 to be a mistranslation, but we have more clues pointing to the copy trap theory. That being said, I don't consider the search concluded by any means. We were unable to reach anyone other than Neil (former business partner of Forrest Games) to verify anything.
I've said this in multiple threads already, but matching possible titles up isn't really going to conclude anything. To solve this mystery, another deep dive would have to be done on the game trading industry. Or, former Nintendo of America employees could be contacted to verify the games that were possibly going to be translated but weren't for whatever reason.
In short, a lot of YYB1 theories are based on speculation with zero inclination on the businesses we are looking closely at. Of course I'm one of the speculators, which is why I try to keep an open mind to any possibility. But I'm also into hard facts and research, and those two things are the only reason I think the copyright trap has traction. People put in the work to get clearer answers.
I highly doubt that Rai Rai! Kyonshis: Baby Kyonshi no Amida Daibouken was ever planned to be released anywhere except for Japan. There are multiple Japan-exclusive Family Trainer games (4: Jogging Race, 5: Meiro Daisakusen, 8 and 9: two games based on Takeshi's Castle).
Sure, you could make a case for Jogging Race and Meiro Daisakusen being released internationally, but the two Takeshi's Castle games were going to stay Japan-exclusive no matter what.