Satoshi Tajiri

Satoshi Tajiri

Date of Birth: August 28, 1965

Home Town: Tokyo, Japan

Occupation:

Bestselling Game: Pokemon Red/Blue/Green

Development Teams

Game Freak

Key Franchises

Pokemon

Satoshi Tajiri is a Japanese game designer and the head of Game Freak. He is also the creator of Pokemon.

Biography

Satoshi Tajiri was born in Tokyo, Japan. As a child, Satoshi enjoyed wandering in the woods. More specifically, he became a bug collector. He would trade bugs with his friends to complete his collection. In this way, he earned the nickname "Dr. Bug." In the late 1970s, the forests he had collected bugs in as a child were paved to make apartments and parking lots. It saddened Satoshi that other children wouldn't be able to collect insects as he had.

Satoshi didn't enjoy school. His father wanted him to become an electrical utility repairman, but he didn't like that idea. While he was at technical school, he spent a lot of time at the arcades. He was such a big fan, the arcade gave him a Space Invaders machine.

In 1982, he and his friends, James Hanzatko and Yuusuke Santamaria, founded a fanzine called Game Freak. The magazine became popular. One of Satoshi's friends, Ken Sugimori, started drawing Pokemon for the magazine. Satoshi's friends encouraged him to write two books: CAP Land and Catch'em all CAP Land. In the 1980s, Game Freak decided to make games. They moved out of their one room office to Nintendo headquarters and started their career in game development.

In 1991, Satoshi first saw the Gameboy. He imagined a game based on catching and collecting insects. The idea of trading them came when he saw two children playing Gameboy's next to each other. With the idea in mind, Satoshi asked Shigeru Miyamoto about it. Together, the two developed the Link Cable for the game. The game itself, Pokemon Red/Blue/Green, took five years to develop. At the time, no other Nintendo game had taken that long to develop.

Trivia

• In the Japanese version of Pokemon Red/Blue/Green, the main character is named Satoshi after Satoshi Tajiri. His rival is named Shigeru after Satoshi's mentor, Shigeru Miyamoto.
• Satoshi Tajiri has alleged been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Nintendo official describe Satoshi as creative, but eccentric and reclusive.