On what date did Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori start Game Freak as a company?

Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori started Game Freak as a video game company on April 26, 1989.

Before becoming a development studio, Game Freak was a self-published video game magazine created by Tajiri in 1983. Sugimori later joined as its illustrator after discovering the magazine in a shop. Their collaboration eventually moved from discussing games to making them.

The company adopted the Game Freak name and developed early projects before working on Pokémon. One early title was Quinty, an action and puzzle game released in North America as Mendel Palace. Nintendo later published Pokémon, while Game Freak handled development of the core games.

Game Freak's history is sometimes confused with the 1996 launch of Pokémon. The studio predates Pokémon by seven years, and its magazine origins predate the company itself by six years. Sugimori became the principal artist for the original Pokémon species, while Tajiri directed the first games.