The original Pokémon game was designed for Nintendo’s Game Boy.
Pokémon Red and Green used the handheld’s monochrome display, cartridge format, and Link Cable. The cable was especially important because it allowed players to battle and trade Pokémon between two Game Boy systems. That connectivity gave the series its defining social feature and helped distinguish it from many single-player role-playing games of the era.
The games were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo. Their design grew from Satoshi Tajiri’s interest in collecting insects and from his fascination with the Game Boy’s ability to connect two players. He imagined creatures traveling through the cable between handhelds, turning a technical feature into a central game mechanic.
Later Pokémon releases appeared on the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and other systems. However, those are follow-up platforms rather than the hardware for the original Japanese games. Pokémon Yellow later used the Game Boy Color’s broader color capabilities, but the first release belongs to the original Game Boy generation.