Topic: Does Nintendo own Pokemon?

This is really bothering me quite a lot. Does Nintendo really own the Pokemon series? Sure, anything published by Nintendo is owned by Nintendo but interms of the actual IP?

I believe it's owned by the Pokémon Company which Nintendo is a major shareholder in along with game freak.

Not exactly. It's kinda complicated, like reddevilade said above.

I think Pokemon is second party. So even though Game Freak and Nintendo are very close, Nintendo doesn't actually own them. Which is why Game Freak can do stupid things like refuse to let Nintendo use their pokemon amiibo properly.

Yeah, Pokémon isn't a first party franchise. It's just heavily associated/partly owned/published by Nintendo. They do no to little developing on the games, nor do they get a major say in what TPC does with the franchise.

Hence why the amiibo thing that bugs me is so prevelant. Outside of generic read use, and the Smash use, they don't do anything. In Hyrule you get the usual random rewards, Captain Toad is 1-ups, but when figure specifics are brought in like in Woolly World...nothing. Have we seen anything regarding them in Super Mario Maker?

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1008721

This Neogaf post goes through the ownership.

@NintyMan:

SEGA, Capcom and Bandai-Namco are all very good with each other and it's something I admire. They all have a solid working relationship and it shows in the shared use of IPs, and the co-development they undertake both with each other with stuff like Project X Zone, and with Nintendo on works like Smash and Bayonetta.

I thought it was nintendo who owned Pokemon IP but it is TPC who actually uses/controls/licence etc. the IP. Also I thought nintendo owns the pokemon company?

Edit: I read the neogaf thing and I understand it slightly better. It also explains why nintendo sometimes doesn't acknowledge pokemon every now and then.

Pokémon is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures Inc., and not by The Pokémon Company. The Pokémon Company (TPC) does act as the funding agent, they're also responsible for marketing of the Pokémon franchise, merchandise, anime and many more. In short, they manage the brand. TPC, however is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures Inc., that part is true and I believe that all three own equal parts of the company (I'm not entirely sure). The irony of this all is that Nintendo themselves helped to set up Creatures Inc., Yamauchi invested in Shigesato Itoi's company Ape Inc., which later became Creatures Inc. Nintendo also owns stakes in Game Freak and Creatures Inc., but I don't know how relevant that is, and I don't believe it is known how much stakes they own in each company. But it gets a little more complicated than that. Because, whilst the franchise itself is owned by all Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures Inc., the names of the Pokémon characters are owned solely by Nintendo. All three companies have a role in producing the Pokémon games, and all three companies coorporate together to make that possible, despite the fact that their coorporation seems a little rough at times.

Source: http://www.pokemon.com/us/legal/

**Sigh** Oh Artwark why?

@Tasuki: This is a question and something that is bothering me a lot. How is this a bad thread I don't even know? There is a question thread which may not be enough to understand because of the way that thread works and you can only ask one question per post.

Anyways, if Nintendo owns Pokemon to a degree, then why is Game Freak titled as a second party dev instead of being first? And for that matter, how does Game Freak port Pokemon to mobile apps and such?

@Artwark: Gamefreak also makes games for other companies like sega with the recent Tembo the Badass Elephant. thats why they are "second party". for gamefreak to be first party then nintendo would need to own them.

Also gamefreak didnt port any games to mobile? All those mobile games were put on mobile by TPC from my knowledge.

@Sleepingmudkip: Game Freak made games for mobile, both Android and iOS, but have also developed for PlayStation, PC, and even the Mega Drive. There's also Pokémon TCG Online, but Game Freak didn't have any input in that game.

Being overly upset at something that is beyond your control and even something as obviously as this = Zoidberg. Not to mention this is in the wrong section it should be under general section. I don't make the rules

This is in the general section... And isn't exactly a terrible thread. It's actually kinda obscure, most people do think pokemon is 100% Nintendo first party.

But. Please stop ridiculing him for everything he says, if you don't like his threads just ignore them.

@Morpheel I completely agree, I usually like what @Tasuki has to say, but he's kind of mean to poor @Artwark. As far as this thread goes I see absolutely nothing wrong with the question @Artwark asked in this thread.

pokemon is complicated ... it falls under the pokemon company and if i understand that right the pokemon company is jointly owned by nintendo, gamefreak, and creatures inc. nintendo doesnt outright own gamefreak or creatures. thats why we can get situations like gamefreak working with sega on an entirely diferent game thats not coming out on a nintendo console. (even if those situations are super rare) i can also guess its why theyre able to do things like release a good chunk of pokemon related apps on ios despite nintendo themselves not doing anything similar (well ... >.> at least up untill the dena thing)

@Tasuki: "This is in the general section... And isn't exactly a terrible thread. It's actually kinda obscure, most people do think pokemon is 100% Nintendo first party.

But. Please stop ridiculing him for everything he says, if you don't like his threads just ignore them" Morpheel Ha! Tasuki you're such a meanie,a very old meanie

So is this the same process like Rare where Nintendo owned 20% of games made by Rare and that does not mean that Nintendo owns some of Rare's IP?

But then why Nintendo simply can't buy GameFreak? Wasn't Tajiri-San a former employee of Nintendo?

@Artwark: Sometimes you cant just outright buy a company.