Pokémon is a series of video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company as part of the Pokémon media franchise. Created by Satoshi Tajiri with assistance from Ken Sugimori, the first games released in 1996 in Japan for the Game Boy, and the main series of role-playing video games (RPGs), also referred as the "core series" by their developers,have continued on each generation of Nintendo's handhelds.
The games are commonly released in pairs, each with slight variations, with a remake of the games usually released a few years after the original versions for another console. While the main series consists of RPGs developed by Game Freak, many spin-off games based on the series have been developed by various companies, encompassing other genres such as action role-playing, puzzle, fighting, and digital pet games.
Including spin-offs, as of November 24, 2017, more than 300 million Pokémon games have been sold worldwide on handheld and home consoles, across 76 titles. This makes Pokémon the second best-selling video game franchise, behind Nintendo's own Mario franchise. In addition, Pokémon is the world's largest media franchise,with successful anime series, movies, and merchandise, with spin-off game Pokémon Go having crossed 1 billion mobile game downloads worldwide.