Everything I did as a kid rolled into one – that is what Pokémon is. When I was making games, something clicked, and I decided to make a game with that concept. “Kids played inside their homes and a lot had forgotten about catching insects. “Places to catch insects are rare because of urbanization,” Tajiri told Time in 1999. It was this childhood infatuation with little creatures followed by his love of arcade games that led to the creation of Pokémon. Bug”, he was always outside trying to catch insects as a kid and dreamed of one day becoming an entomologist. The man who originally came up with the idea for these pocket-sized monsters was one of Game Freak’s founders, Satoshi Tajiri. Moreover, these hugely lucrative games helped to pave the way for what is now the highest-grossing media franchise on the planet. A huge global hit, it is currently the best-selling role-playing game of all time with well over 30 million units sold worldwide. Pokémon Red and Blue, as it was called internationally, debuted in North America in September 1998 and by the end of the year had sales in excess of four million.

The then-president of Nintendo demanded that the game be released internationally with the original creature designs. It was felt that American kids would prefer more powerful-looking monsters, yet Hiroshi Yamauchi was having none of it. More than one million units of the red and green editions plus the blue version (which came out eight months later) were sold in 1996, followed by 3.65 million units the year after as the cute-looking pocket monsters overtook Final Fantasy VII as the best-selling game in the country.ĭespite the success in Japan, there were reservations as to whether these charming little characters would appeal to children overseas. Developed by Game Freak for the Gameboy, Pocket Monsters: Red and Pocket Monsters: Green proved hugely popular with both critics and consumers, many of whom bought both titles. On this day 25 years ago, Nintendo released two versions of a role-playing game that would go on to take Japan and the rest of the world by storm.

Pocket monster game