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Apr 02, 2020 · Pokemon is owned by The Pokemon Company, and The Pokemon Company is evenly owned by three other companies: Nintendo — 33% Game Freak — 33% Creatures — 33% …
Who Owns Pokemon?
Most think the answer is simply Nintendo but in actuality there is a lot of nuance in giving a clear answer. Pokemon is owned by The Pokemon Company, and The Pokemon Company is evenly owned by three other companies:
Who owns Pokemon Go?
To make things even more compl i cated is trying to figure out who owns Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go is owned by Niantic who licenses the Pokemon brand and characters from the Pokemon Company. On top of that Nintendo owns 13% of Niantic. So Nintendo makes money both from the licensing deal with The Pokemon Company and the part ownership of Niantic.
Who owns Pokemon?
Nintendo is the full, sole owner of the Pokemon trademarks. The name, the logo, and indeed every character name down to Pikachu and Gary “Effing” Oak are Nintendo ’s alone. This immediately strikes down the possibility of Pokemon going somewhere Nintendo really doesn’t want it to.
Is Pokemon on Nintendo?
The games, apart from a few mobile ventures, have only ever appeared on Nintendo hardware. Pokemon ‘s characters have crossed over into other Nintendo titles from time to time, most notably Smash Bros. Oh, and the company’s name appears in the copyright notices of literally every Pokemon thing.
What was the first game of Game Freak?
He’s also given a special thanks on Game Freak’s first game, Mendel Palace. Creatures offered to infuse some cash into Game Freak to get Pokemon to the finish line, and took a share of Game Freak’s ownership in the franchise in exchange. This proved to be a good deal.
What is a game freak?
Game Freak is a third-party developer that started off as a fanzine publisher in Tokyo. At a certain point, they realized that they had the talents and finances to produce games, so they did just that. By the time they got to work on Pokemon, Game Freak had already released several games.
Who Owns That Pokemon?
The ownership of portable gaming’s biggest franchise isn’t as twisted as Giovanni’s Wild Ride.
Nintendo
Nintendo has a couple of roles in the handling of Pokémon. The most obvious thing besides providing the consoles is the publisher outside of Japan (Pokémon Company is the publisher in Japan) and handling distribution of the titles.
Creatures
Creatures was founded originally as a successor company to Ape Inc, the development company most notably responsible for Earthbound.
Game Freak Inc
Game Freak is an independent developer who developed titles such as the NES title Mendel Palace and Sega Channel game Pulseman (available on Wii Virtual Console) before developing the original Pokémon game.
Pokémon Company
As Pokémon was about to launch outside of Japan, it had already conquered its homeland. It was decided to set up the first Pokémon Center stores in Japan in 1998 to support the fanbase there.
Conclusion
The roles are very clear in the ownership of Pokémon – Nintendo does distribution and publishing, Creatures takes the cards, GameFreak the games and Pokémon Company everything else. The arrangement works for the companies and the fans, so it’s going to be a relationship that stays together for years to come.
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Great article! I’ve actually been wondering about this very subject for a long time now.
Overview
The Pokémon Company (株式会社ポケモン, Kabushiki gaisha Pokémon) is a Japanese company responsible for brand management, production, publishing, marketing and licensing of the Pokémon franchise, which consists of video game software, a trading card game, anime television series, films, manga, home entertainmentproducts, merchandise, and other ventures. It was established t…
History
Name
Concept
Video games
In other media
Pokémon (an abbreviation for Pocket Monsters in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, a company founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. The franchise was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996, and is centered on fictional creatures called “Pokémon”. In Pokémon, humans, known as Pokémon Trainers, catch and train Pokémon to battle other Pokémo…
Criticism and controversy
In 1998, Nintendo spent $25 million promoting Pokémon in the United States in partnership with Hasbro, KFC, and others. Nintendo initially feared that Pokémon was too Japanese for Western tastes but Alfred Kahn, then CEO of 4Kids Entertainment convinced the company otherwise. The one who spotted Pokemon’s potential in the United States was Kahn’s colleague Thomas Kenney.
In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of …
Cultural influence
The name Pokémon is a syllabic abbreviation of the Japanese brand Pocket Monsters. The term “Pokémon”, in addition to referring to the Pokémon franchise itself, also collectively refers to the 905 fictional species that have made appearances in Pokémon media as of the release of the eighth generation titles Pokémon Sword and Shield. “Pokémon” is identical in the singular and plural, as is each individual species name; it is and would be grammatically correct to say “one P…