Jaleco

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Jaleco's primary logo.

Jaleco, Ltd. (ジャレコ [Jareko]) was a Japanese video game company originally called "Japan Leisure Co., Ltd.," but later shortened to "Jaleco." The company was formed in 1974 and, like many Japanese amusement companies, entered into the arcade video game market in the early 1980s. Shortly after that, they began porting their arcade games to Japanese video game consoles and home computers, often using the company Tose to do the development. In 1988, they created a publishing arm in Illinois called Jaleco USA, Inc. to get their games published in North America. Jaleco appears to have stopped developing games around 1999-2000. All subsequent games were developed by third-party companies and merely published by Jaleco.

In 2002, Jaleco USA was acquired by PCCW and the name was changed to Jaleco Entertainment, Inc.. In 2006, Jaleco, Ltd. became Jaleco Holdings and the video game publishing division was spun-off into a separate company retaining the name Jaleco, Ltd. In 2009, Jaleco, Ltd. was sold to Game Yarou, which later changed its name to Emcom Holdings. Jaleco Entertainment appears to have been dissolved by PCCW in 2011. In 2014, Emcom Holdings went bankrupt and the rights to Jaleco games were purchased by City Connection.

Personal

As a child, I always pronounced the name as "JAIL co," but, after playing an SNES game where the company name was spoken in the intro, I finally heard it pronounced with Japanese syllables: "JAH lay co." I don't think I ever bought a Jaleco game, and, of the ones I saw from my friends, I wasn't very interested. The only games I like from the company were developed by other companies.

Games

Jaleco logo on the top label.

Jaleco had a few big hits, namely the Bases Loaded series, but I was never really that impressed with their titles which included a lot of sports games, a genre I have never cared for.

Jaleco USA annoyingly put their brand on the top label of NES carts where the game's title is usually displayed. This made it impossible to identify the game when viewed from the top, which is the most common way NES carts are arranged. Thankfully, they only did this for a few games before wising up. Strangely, in Japan, they would print the backs of their Famicom boxes upside down.

These are the Jaleco games that are important to me:

Game Boy

NES

Logos

Gallery

Links

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