What was the original Pokémon game console?

The original Pokémon games were released for the Game Boy.

Pocket Monsters Red and Green were designed for Nintendo's monochrome handheld and used its link cable to support Pokémon trading and battles. Those connection features became central to the series' identity and helped distinguish Pokémon from many other role-playing games of the period.

The first games were not originally built for the Game Boy Color, although later releases took advantage of color hardware. Pokémon Yellow, released in Japan in 1998, used the Game Boy Color's palette and was influenced by the animated series.

International players generally encountered Pokémon Red and Blue rather than the Japanese Red and Green pair. The original hardware could not display the colorful presentation associated with later generations, but its portability and link cable made collecting Pokémon a shared activity. The series later moved through the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch.