What was the original platform for the first Pokémon games?

The first Pokémon games were released for the Game Boy.

Pocket Monsters Red and Green were designed as role-playing games for Nintendo's portable system. The Game Boy's link port was central to the concept: players could connect two systems with a Game Link Cable to trade Pokémon or battle another player's team.

That connectivity helped distinguish Pokémon from many earlier handheld games. Satoshi Tajiri reportedly saw the cable as a way to make virtual creatures move between players, drawing on his childhood fascination with collecting insects. Nintendo also released two versions so trading was needed to obtain every original species.

Later Pokémon games appeared on the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch. The original games are sometimes incorrectly associated with the Game Boy Color because they could display color on that system, but their first platform was the original monochrome-capable Game Boy.