When was Game Freak, the developer of the original Pokémon games, incorporated?

Game Freak, the developer of the original Pokémon games, was incorporated on April 26, 1989. The company grew from a video-game fanzine created by Satoshi Tajiri and later illustrated by Ken Sugimori.

Tajiri and Sugimori developed Game Freak from a publishing project into a game-development company. Their early commercial game was Quinty, known internationally as Mendel Palace, which Namco published in 1989.

Game Freak later pitched the Pokémon concept to Nintendo. The project required roughly six years of development before Pocket Monsters Red and Green launched in Japan in 1996. Game Freak handled the core game development, while Nintendo published the titles.

The company’s name therefore predates Pokémon by nearly seven years. This distinction matters because Game Freak is the developer, Satoshi Tajiri is the franchise creator, and Nintendo is the original publisher. Their closely connected roles are often compressed into the single idea that Nintendo “made” Pokémon.