How Many Pokémon Games Are There?

Over 130 official Pokémon games if you count every cartridge, disc, mobile app, and arcade cabinet stamped with Pikachu's face. Around 39 'mainline' RPGs if you only count the traditional ones where you pick a starter and beat eight gym leaders. Only about seven distinct hobbies if you count what Pokémon fans actually spend their time doing.

The official scoreboard is misleading. Most of those 130+ games are spin-offs, mobile apps, or arcade machines that the mainstream Pokémon fan has never touched. The honest answer to "how many games are there" depends entirely on what you mean by 'Pokémon' in the first place — and that's where this page starts.

What Pokémon actually is

Pokémon is a Japanese multimedia franchise built around fictional creatures called Pokémon — short for Pocket Monsters. The original concept came from Satoshi Tajiri, who founded the studio Game Freak in 1989. The first games — Red and Green — shipped on the Game Boy in Japan in February 1996. Internationally the franchise launched as Red and Blue in 1998. The brand is co-owned by Game Freak, Nintendo, and Creatures Inc., trading collectively as The Pokémon Company.

What started as two Game Boy cartridges has expanded into the highest-grossing media franchise in history by total revenue — more than Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, or Harry Potter. The games, cards, anime, films, and merchandise together have generated an estimated $100+ billion across thirty years. There are 1,028 individual Pokémon species as of Pokémon Day 2026, spread across nine completed generations of games, with Generation 10 just starting its reveal cycle.

Where you actually encounter Pokémon

There are essentially five places Pokémon lives in 2026:

• Mainline video games on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 — the traditional adventure RPGs.
• Pokémon GO — the augmented reality phone game where you walk around your neighbourhood catching creatures.
• The Pokémon Trading Card Game — physical collectible cards, with 126 mainline English sets released since 1999 and 10 cards in a modern booster pack.
• The anime and films — a cartoon series running continuously since 1997, plus dozens of theatrical and streaming films.
• Casual phone apps like Pokémon Sleep (tracks your sleep), Pokémon Café ReMix, and Pokémon Masters EX. These are passive engagement, not games in the gym-leader sense.

A Pokémon GO player and a competitive Switch player might both call themselves fans and have nothing else in common. Knowing which Pokémon someone means tells you more about what they're actually doing than the word 'Pokémon' does.

Why anyone plays — the seven hobbies

Underneath the 130+ games and five distribution channels, there are essentially seven distinct hobbies people pursue under the Pokémon brand. Tap one below to see what it actually involves, what it costs, how much time it takes, and how to start.

How to start if you're brand new

For most newcomers — including adults buying a Pokémon gift for a child — the cleanest entry point is a current mainline game on Nintendo Switch. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (2022) or Pokémon Sword and Shield (2019) both work. Total cost: around £200 for a used Switch plus £40 for the game.

For the cheapest possible start, Pokémon GO is free on any modern phone. You'll catch a Bulbasaur within an hour. Whether you stick with it depends entirely on whether 'walk around your neighbourhood looking at your phone' appeals to you.

The route to avoid: do not buy your first Pokémon experience on eBay or from a reseller. The vintage TCG market is full of sophisticated counterfeits — fake graded slabs, resealed booster packs, weighed-and-replaced cards. If you want into the cards specifically, walk into a real game shop and buy a current sealed product. Build literacy before spending collector money.

And one piece of perspective

You do not have to play all 130+ games to be a 'real' Pokémon fan. Most fans do one thing. Some do two. The kid playing Scarlet on his Switch, the adult grading 1999 Charizards, and the office worker walking her lunch break on Pokémon GO are doing genuinely different things, and the franchise is enormous precisely because all three count.

130+ games. 39 mainline. 7 distinct hobbies. 1 franchise that quietly became the highest-grossing media property of all time. Pick the part that sounds appealing — it'll tell you everything you need to know about whether the rest is worth your time.