Pika! Pika! Pikachu! 30 Facts about 30 Years of Pokémon
The first Pokémon game was released in Japan on February 27, 1996. The series founded the world's most successful media franchise.
(Image: René Meyer)
Indeed, the world of Pokémon is bigger than any other, bigger than Star Wars, Marvel, or Harry Potter. There are no exact figures, but sales over 30 years are estimated at 100 to 150 billion dollars. Video games account for only a quarter of this – alongside the trading cards, feature films, and the TV series. Licenses and merchandising for toys, plush animals, hats, T-shirts, backpacks, and more generate the most money, more than half.
In the world of Pokémon, it's all about collecting, training, and battling creatures. Wild specimens are caught with a Poké Ball, which opens to capture them. The Pokédex keeps track of all collected beings. Via link cable and later wirelessly, two Game Boys are connected to trade Pokémon with other players. From the very beginning, the game series takes a unique path: each generation is released in two versions, initially Red and Blue, each missing some Pokémon. This forces players to trade with owners of the other edition to collect all the mini-monsters.
Pokémon uniquely combines video games, anime, and trading cards: it's the TV series that makes the games so popular. The series gets a special boost from a step highly unusual for Nintendo: in 2016, “Pokémon GO” is released as a free smartphone app. It's played in the real world, with Pokémon appearing on the screen. This also attracts curious players who haven't had anything to do with Nintendo consoles before – and motivates them to look for the small creatures in central locations. The latest installment is released next week, on March 5, 2026: the life simulation “Pokémon Pokopia” for Switch 2.
heise online congratulates on the anniversary – with 30 facts from 30 years.
30 Facts about 30 Years of Pokémon:
– Pokémon is short for Pocket Monsters. The two terms exist in similar forms as loanwords in Japanese. They are the original name for the game: in February 1996, the Red Edition “Pocket Monsters Aka” and the Green Edition “Pocket Monsters Midori” are released in Japan for the Game Boy. In October, the Blue Edition “Pocket Monsters Ao” follows. It has a number of improvements and is the basis for the American and European versions, which follow in 1998 and 1999 respectively. However, they are called Red/Blue instead of Red/Green there, because Red/Blue has greater contrast and is more familiar to Western eyes. To complete the confusion: Yellow is released in the West as the third game of the first generation.
– Even though almost all Pokémon games are only released for Nintendo platforms, the creator of the series is not Nintendo but the independent Japanese studio Game Freak. It was founded in 1989; its first games include “Mario & Yoshi” and “Mario & Wario.” The fathers of the studio are Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori. The studio's name is based on a fan magazine that Satoshi Tajiri started in 1983 and to which Ken Sugimori joined as an illustrator.
30 Jahre Pokémon (29 Bilder)
The Pokémon Company
)– In his childhood, Satoshi Tajiri was an avid insect collector; a hobby widespread in Japan. People would roam fields and forests, collect insects and crickets, trade them – and sometimes even let them fight each other. When he encountered the Game Boy with its link cable, he got the idea to develop an insect video game for it.
– As early as 1998, a holding company was founded as a joint venture between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures; the latter studio is responsible for a number of Pokémon games outside the main series and especially for the trading cards. Originally intended for managing Pokémon stores, The Pokémon Company today manages the entire empire.
– More than 100 Pokémon games have been released. In addition to the main series, there are numerous side games. With around 500 million games sold, Pokémon is the second most successful series – after Mario.
– In the first generation of editions, there are 151 Pokémon – 150 regular ones and one hidden one that cannot be found and therefore not legitimately obtained: Mew. It is obtained at special events via link cable or by using a glitch or cheat module. Many legends surround Mew: a Pokémon that is said to exist but is not encountered in the game. Who knows, maybe it's the most mystical game character of all.
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– There are now over 1,000 Pokémon. Each has a fixed number. Number 1 is Bulbasaur.
– Pokémon has an accent mark as an aid for correct pronunciation. In the word “Pokemon,” Americans would swallow the E, as in “Smoke.”
– The term Pocket Monsters suggests that all Pokémon are small. However, they have very different sizes. The smallest are only 10 centimeters tall, while Eternatus stands a proud 20 meters tall. Size and weight are not always in proportion. Wailord, for example, which resembles a whale, is 14.5 meters tall but weighs only 400 kg. Real whales of this size weigh a hundred times as much.
– Most Pokémon have different names depending on the language version. Bulbasaur is Fushigidane in the Japanese original, Bulbasaur in English and Spanish, and Bulbizarre in French. Initially, only Pikachu and Mew are called the same everywhere. With the fourth generation on the Nintendo DS, where trading worldwide is possible thanks to WiFi, they began to name at least the coveted “Legendary” Pokémon more uniformly.
