The Pokémon franchise has expanded, quite successfully, in many different directions beyond its bread and butter video games: through toys, TV shows, movies and, of course, card games. However, what might surprise people is that the idea of expanding into the world of collectible cards came quite early on, before the original games were even released according to a recent interview.
“At the time, I had yet to be involved in Pokémon Cards, so this is what I’ve heard, but it was Creatures founder Ishihara who at the time was studying board games of all sorts,” explained Creatures, Inc. director Atsushi Nagashima. “At the time, Pokémon Red and Green were still in development, but from how you could collect 151 species of Pokémon, and the game’s turn-based battle system, it was very compatible with the TCG format.”
Considering the fact the original Pokémon TCG set came out only a few months after the first games, it does make sense in hindsight that development would have started rather early. Altogether, it just goes to show the insight of all the people involved in launching the franchise at the time; they had an incredibly strong concept and they knew it.
Source: Nintendo Life