What platform hosted the original Pokémon games in Japan?

The original Pokémon games in Japan were released for the Game Boy.

Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters Green launched on Nintendo’s handheld Game Boy on February 27, 1996. The system’s link cable was crucial to the design, because players could connect two Game Boys to battle and trade Pokémon.

The games were role-playing adventures developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo. Their black-and-white graphics and turn-based battles worked within the technical limits of the original hardware, while the communication feature gave players a reason to interact outside the single-player story.

Pokémon Gold and Silver later used the Game Boy Color, but the first games were compatible with the original Game Boy family. International players may also remember Pokémon Red and Blue as the initial releases in their markets, but those versions came after Japan’s Red and Green. The platform question therefore refers to the hardware used by the franchise’s first game release, not later enhanced editions.