Satoshi Tajiri

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Satoshi Tajiri (田尻智, Tajiri Satoshi^?, born on August 28 1965) is a Japanese electronic game designer and the creator of Pocket Monsters, better known as Pokémon.

1 Childhood and education
2 Game Freak
3 Nintendo
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Childhood and education

As a child, Satoshi lived in a suburb of Tokyo and loved to collect insects, and hunt them in ponds, fields and forests, constantly looking for new insects and coming up with new ways to attract insects like beetles. He was so attracted to insects, in fact, that his peers used to call him "Dr. Bug".

Satoshi did not like school. His father wanted him to be an electrical utility repairman, but this is not what he wanted. In the late 1970s, the fields and ponds that Satoshi loved as a child were paved over by apartments and parking lots, and his idea for Pokémon grew, as he wanted to give modern children the chance to hunt for creatures as he did. Satoshi got into games when he was at technical school, spending all his time in arcades. He was such a big fan that one local arcade gave him a Space Invaders machine to take home.

[edit] Game Freak

In 1982, Satoshi and his friends James Hanzatko and Yuusuke Santamaria formed a games magazine under the name of Game Freak. One of his Game Freak friends was Ken Sugimori, who drew all of the Pokémon's images. In the early 1980s, he won a contest sponsored by Sega involving making a video game. He later had his first video game, Quinty, published by Namco for the Nintendo Famicom. In 1991, Satoshi discovered the Game Boy. When he first saw Link Cables, he imagined insects creeping along them, and the Pokémon idea was born. The game was given some initial funding and concept work from another game design studio, "Creatures." Tajiri named his development company "Game Freak", after the magazine, and thus it can still be seen at the start of Pokémon games.

[edit] Nintendo

Tajiri went to work for Nintendo and spent the next six years working on Pokémon. He became friends with Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin, and Donkey Kong, who also became a mentor to Tajiri. As a tribute to Tajiri and Miyamoto, Ash Ketchum (the anime counterpart of "Red" in the games) is named Satoshi and Gary Oak (the anime counterpart of "Blue" in the games) is named Shigeru in the Japanese version of Pokémon.

Most recently, Tajiri (along with Nintendo Co. Ltd. president Satoru Iwata) served as an executive producer for the Game Boy Advance game ScrewBreaker (スクリューブレイカー轟振どりるれろ, sukuryūbureikā gōshin dorirurero^?), released outside of Japan as Drill Dozer.

Satoshi Tajiri has allegedly been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.<ref>Amadeo Plaza. "A Salute to Japanese Game Designers", Amped IGO, 2006-02-06, pp. 2. Retrieved on 2006-07-08.</ref><ref>"The Top 100 Game Developers", Next Generation, 2006-03-18, pp. 11. Retrieved on 2006-07-08.</ref> He has been described by Nintendo officials as exceedingly creative but "reclusive" and "eccentric,"<ref>Mary Roach. "Cute Inc.", Wired, pp. 5. Retrieved on 2006-07-08.</ref> characteristics consistent with Asperger's.