Satoshi Tajiri

is a Japanese video game designer and director who is the creator of the Pokémon franchise and the co-founder and president of video game developer Game Freak.

A fan of arcade games in his youth, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzine Game Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development company of the same name. Tajiri claims that the joining of two Game Boys via a link cable inspired him to create a game which embodied the collection and companionship of his childhood hobby, insect collecting. The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, took six years to complete and went on to spark a multibillion-dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo's handheld gaming scene. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer, which he holds to this day. Tajiri has also worked for other Game Freak projects.

Early life

Satoshi Tajiri was born on August 28, 1965, in Setagaya, Tokyo. Tajiri grew up in Machida, Tokyo, which at the time still maintained a rural atmosphere Tajiri enjoyed insect collecting as a child. He and his friends would exchange insects, which later became the inspiration for his video game development. Other children called him "Dr. Bug", His interest eventually evolved into attempting to plan his own games. He took his Famicom apart to see how it worked, and won a contest for a video game idea sponsored by Sega. Tajiri did not attend university, but instead attended a two-year technical degree program at the National Institute of Technology, Tokyo College, where he majored in electronics and computer science. It was handwritten and stapled together. Satoshi created the Game Freak fanzine to help gamers with winning strategies and lists of easter eggs. The highest selling issue, at more than 10,000 copies, details how to get a high score in Xevious. Ken Sugimori, who later illustrated the first 151 Pokémon, saw the magazine at a dōjinshi shop, and became its illustrator. As more contributors came to Game Freak, Tajiri began to realize that most games were lacking in quality, and he and Sugimori decided the solution was to make their own games. Soon after, the two pitched their first game, an arcade-style game called Quinty, to Namco, who published the game. Tajiri also wrote as a freelance writer for the magazine Famicom Hisshōbon, later called Hippon, and reviewed arcade games for Family Computer Magazine and Famicom Tsūshin.

Tajiri first conceived the idea of Pokémon in 1990. The idea came together after he saw a Game Boy and the ability to communicate between Game Boys,

When he first pitched the idea of Pokémon to Nintendo staff, they could not quite grasp the concept, but were impressed enough with Tajiri's game design reputation that they decided to explore it. Shigeru Miyamoto began to mentor Tajiri, guiding him during the creation process.

Between the approval and completion stages of the project, Tajiri assisted in the design of two Mario spin-off games for Nintendo: Yoshi and the Japanese-only release Mario & Wario. He also worked on 1994's Pulseman for Sega.

Once the games were completed, very few media outlets gave it attention, believing the Game Boy was a dead console; a general lack of interest of merchandising convinced Tajiri that Nintendo would reject the games. The franchise helped Nintendo's waning sales. Tajiri continues to be involved in the more modern Pokémon games as well. For Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, he supervised the process from start to finish and approved all the text. While developing games, Tajiri works irregular hours, often laboring 24 hours at a time and resting 12 hours. including Godzilla and Ultraman. Video game magazine Edge placed Tajiri on their list of the "Hot 100 Game Developers of 2008". Tajiri, alongside Tsunekazu Ishihara, received the Special Award from the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference in 2011. The Economist has described Pokémon as "Japan's most successful export."

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