Pokémon has remained one of the most popular cultural phenomenons for several decades. The incredibly vast Pokémon world includes video games, trading cards, TV series, and movies. It has become apparent that the history of Pokémon can often cause some confusion, especially regarding whether the video games or card games came first.

How To Trace The Origin of Pokémon

To answer the question of who invented Pokémon, the concept that would become more widely known as Pokémon can be traced back to 1982 with its inventors Satoshi Stair and Ken Sugimori. The Pocket Monsters franchise has its roots in a gaming magazine called Game Freak which provided strategies and advice for 1980s gamers. By 1990, Satoshi turned his attention to the gaming industry and eventually convinced Nintendo to publish video games based on unique creatures inspired by his childhood bug-collecting hobby. In 1996, the first Pokemon products were released in Japan as the Game Boy titles Pocket Monsters Red and Green hit the market. These games proved to be exceedingly popular and international versions were published in the years to follow.

How The Pokémon Card Game Began

Soon after the release of the first Pocket Monsters games in Japan, a set of 102 trading cards illustrated by Ken Sugimori and Mitsuhiro Arita began circulating among its rapidly growing fanbase. The Pokémon trading card game arrived in North America in 1999, distributed by the role-playing game company Wizards of the Coast. Pokémon tournaments would soon become popular around the world and the hunt to find the rarest variations of these trading cards began. Pokémon has given rise to a trading card industry where some limited print-run cards can sell for thousands of dollars. Over 34 billion Pokémon trading cards have been produced in many languages and sold to Pokémon fanatics around the world in over 70 countries.

How Pokémon Arrived At Big And Small Screens

Pokémon has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the popularity of anime around the planet. The first Pokémon TV series in Japan hit screens in 1996 following the main character of Satoshi later renamed Ash Ketchum and his Pikachu companion. Since then, over 1000 episodes in many different series have been produced. The original TV series would give rise to a Pokémon movie in 1997 called Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back. 23 more films would soon follow suit, including the live-action feature Detective Pikachu in 2019.

What You Need To Know About Pokémon Go

Released in 2016, Pokémon Go is yet another example of how the franchise has established cultural trends around the world. Becoming one of the most successful mobile games of all time, Pokémon Go's clever use of augmented reality technology has coaxed countless home-dwellers to go outdoors and find rare Pokémon in the wild. Although the game can be ed for free, there are plenty of in-app purchases that can make your Pokémon hunting experience a bit easier but also more costly.

Pokémon Scarlet, Pokémon Violet, And Beyond

It never seems like a long wait before another much anticipated Pokémon trading card set, TV show, movie, or game hits the market. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet for the Nintendo Switch recently reached store shelves and is the most ambitious Pokémon console title to date. The massive open-world RPG has proven a bit too much for the aging Switch to handle technically, but nevertheless, the appeal of Pokémon seems unstoppable, and the game is selling extremely well. Pokémon is not going anywhere anytime soon, so it's very likely in the future there will be games on newer consoles that can render its vibrant and detailed world without frame rate drops.