#2 Ivysaur - Original Pokémon Sprites & Pokédex Entries
12#shorts #short #ytshorts #pokemon #gaming #retro
A series I'm starting on the side for fun!
Pokémon[a][1][2][3] (an abbreviation for Pocket Monsters[b] in Japanese) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. The franchise was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996,[4] and is centered around fictional creatures called "Pokémon". In Pokémon, Pokémon Trainers are people who catch, train, care for, and battle with Pokémon. The English slogan for the franchise is "Gotta Catch 'Em All!".[5][6] There are currently 1015 Pokémon species.[7]
The franchise began as Pocket Monsters: Red and Green (later released outside of Japan as Pokémon Red and Blue), a pair of video games for the original Game Boy handheld system that were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in February 1996. Pokémon soon became a media mix franchise adapted into various different media.[8] Pokémon is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The Pokémon video game series is the third best-selling video game franchise of all time with more than 480 million copies sold[9] and one billion mobile downloads.[10] The Pokémon video game series spawned an anime television series that has become the most successful video game adaptation of all time[11] with over 20 seasons and 1,000 episodes in 192 countries.[9] The Pokémon Trading Card Game is the highest-selling trading card game of all time[12] with over 52.9 billion cards sold. In addition, the Pokémon franchise includes the world's top-selling toy brand,[13] an anime film series, a live-action film (Detective Pikachu), books, manga comics, music, merchandise, and a temporary theme park. The franchise is also represented in other Nintendo media, such as the Super Smash Bros. series, where various Pokémon characters appear as both playable and non-playable characters.
History
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Pokémon.
The Pokémon franchise began as Pocket Monsters: Red and Green (later released outside of Japan as Pokémon Red and Blue), a pair of video games for the original Game Boy handheld system that were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in February 1996.[14] Pokémon soon became a media mix franchise adapted into various different media, with the Pokémon Trading Card Game released in October 1996, the Pokémon Adventures manga first released in Japan in March 1997, and the Pocket Monsters: Original Series released in April 1997. Pocket Pikachu was released in Japan in March 1998, with the first ever Pokémon film, Pokémon: The First Movie, first released in Japan in July 1998.[15]
In 1998, Nintendo spent $25 million promoting Pokémon in the United States in partnership with Hasbro, KFC, and others.[16] Nintendo initially feared that Pokémon was too Japanese for Western tastes but Alfred Kahn, then CEO of 4Kids Entertainment, convinced the company otherwise.[17] The one who spotted Pokémon's potential in the United States was Kahn's colleague Thomas Kenney.[18]
In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of Pokémon, announced that it had agreed not to renew the Pokémon representation agreement. The Pokémon Company International oversees all Pokémon licensing outside Asia.[19] In 2006, the franchise celebrated its tenth anniversary with the release of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.[20] In 2016, the Pokémon Company celebrated Pokémon's 20th anniversary by airing an ad during Super Bowl 50 in January and re-releasing the first Pokémon video games 1996 Game Boy games Pokémon Red, Green (only in Japan), and Blue, and the 1998 Game Boy Color game Pokémon Yellow for the Nintendo 3DS on February 26, 2016.[21][22] The mobile augmented reality game Pokémon Go was released in July 2016.[23] Pokémon Sun and Moon also released in the same year. The first live-action film in the franchise, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, based on the 2018 Nintendo 3DS spin-off game Detective Pikachu, was released in 2019.[24] The eighth generation of core series games began with Pokémon Sword and Shield, released worldwide on the Nintendo Switch on November 15, 2019.
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the company released two additional titles for the Nintendo Switch: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, remakes of the Nintendo DS Pokémon Diamond and Pearl games, on November 19, 2021, and its "premake" Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which was subsequently released on January 28, 2022.[25][26]
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet began the ninth generation of the game series when they released worldwide for the Nintendo Switch on November 18, 2022.[27]