This Day in History: August 28, 1965

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by Simonov

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This Day in History

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On August 28, 1965, Japanese video game designer and director Satoshi Tajiri is born. Born in Tokyo, Japan, Tajiri grew up enjoying the hobby of insect collecting as a child before later developing an affinity for video games in his teenage days. In the 1980s, he studied video game development and started working on his own games alongside Ken Sugimori, eventually creating the company Game Freak. After being introduced to the then-new Nintendo Game Boy system and its ability to connect to and communicate with other Game Boy systems, Tajiri came up with an idea for a new video game which would allow children who were part of a new generation who lacked access to the sort of nature he had as a child to experience the same sort of joy and entertainment he had experienced collecting insects as a child. Tajiri made the initial proposal for Pokemon to Nintendo in 1990 and he and Sugimori set about creating the first Pokemon game. After six years of development, during which Game Freak nearly went bankrupt and Tajiri refused to take a salary, Pokemon Red and Green was released for the Game Boy system. The new game was initially largely ignored by the media as the Game Boy was seen as a dead system with little interest by that point; however, Pokemon quickly grew in popularity and resurrected the popularity of the Nintendo system. In the years since, Pokemon has grown to be one of the most successful media franchises in the world, spawning not only follow-up games (including 2019's Sword and Shield) but also an ever-popular trading card game, multiple animated films, a live-action film, multiple manga series, an anime series, a mobile game for smartphones, and board games (including a Pokemon-edition of Monopoly). Satoshi Tajiri continues to work with Game Freak on the Pokemon video game series to this day.

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female 1,060,242, pokemon 186,576, video games 8,373, vulpix 4,208, japan 999, this day in history 249, tdih 244, august 28 1, satoshi tajiri 1

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Type: Picture/Pinup

Published: 4 years, 2 months ago

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caldaq

4 years, 2 months ago

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I've likely seen and interacted with much of their work.

RabbitGTI

4 years, 2 months ago

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Very interesting as always. You never cease to inform me. I remember watching the Pokémon TV show with my younger brothers in the 90's and I also remember the first gen cards were huge in my elementary school. I was never interested in any of that, but I appreciate and respect that Satoshi Tajiri created Pokémon with the goal of getting kids active and outdoors and let them experience the same joy in nature and collecting he did. I remember playing a Mario game-I don't remember which one-on my younger brother's Gameboy. Thanks for the 90's nostalgia.