What company did Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori establish in 1989?

Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori established Game Freak in 1989.

Game Freak began as a self-published video game magazine created by Tajiri. Sugimori joined as an illustrator, and the pair later transformed the name into a video game development company. Game Freak’s first published game was Quinty, released outside Japan as Mendel Palace.

The company developed the original Pokémon games, while Nintendo published them. Creatures Inc. also became an important Pokémon partner, especially in development and trading cards, but it was not the company founded by Tajiri and Sugimori.

The name Game Freak therefore predates Pokémon as a video game series. The magazine began in 1983, while the company was formally established on April 26, 1989. That distinction explains why both 1983 and 1989 appear in histories of Game Freak.