Conflicting info on Satoshi Tajiri?

[irky]

I've been doing some research on Pokemon for a project and while researching Satoshi Tajiri I found some conflicting info about how Pokemon originally gained funding and was pitched to Nintendo.
Which is the correct info?
(also, I apologize if this is in the wrong location; this is my first post in the forums)


He pitched the idea for Pokémon to Nintendo, and although they didn't fully understand the concept of the game, he was given some initial funding anyway and concept work from another game design studio, Creatures, Inc.. Tajiri spent the next six years working on Pokémon. Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin, and Donkey Kong, was assigned to help in the development of the initial versions of Pocket Monsters, Red and Green.

Satoshi Tajiri - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia


After several failed attempts at pitching this idea to Nintendo, Tajiri's new friend Shigeru Miyamoto pitched it to the company, and Nintendo began to fund the project, spending six years developing the games that would become a worldwide sensation.

History of Pokémon - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

 

[SnorlaxMonster]

This doesn't answer your question, but it does give some further information about the situation. Here's an interview with TIME Tokyo (translated into English) done with Tajiri in the late 90s. ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Pok

 

[Talon87]

It's unfortunate that all of the English-subtitled copies of Arino Shinya's interview with Tajiri for the television program GameCenter CX have been taken down. That's the first place I'd point you to since, iirc, the man himself answers your very question in that interview. There are some fragments of the interview on YouTube; unfortunately, listening to them them while replying here, I didn't hear the part I was listening for (with Miyamoto's involvement), so it's probably in a different part of the interview. If you can find a full version of the interview, raw or subbed, it would likely help in answering your question. Bulbapedia has a number of staff members and regular members alike who can make use of the raw version, and just about everyone here can tackle a subbed version.

In the meantime, if memory serves, the second paragraph you offered is a more accurate phrasing of Miyamoto's role in the games' development than the first paragraph is. (Though it ends on a confusing note that seems to imply Nintendo spent the six years developing the games rather than Game Freak. :|) The issue that Tajiri faced with Pokémon was that Nintendo was not confident in the project's profitability. Game Freak had a prior history of making modestly successful games, most of them with puzzle elements, and Nintendo probably wanted something more along the lines of another Qwinty or Jerry Boy from the small studio than an ambitious project of Pokémon's scale. Miyamoto's role, if I recall correctly, was helping to persuade Nintendo to jointly fund the development of a non-Pokémon project alongside Pokémon. When the first paragraph says, "Shigeru Miyamoto [...] was assigned to help in the development of the initial versions of Pocket Monsters, Red and Green," it makes it sound like he was a Nintendo ambassador posted to the Game Freak development team by President Yamauchi and/or the board of directors. I don't remember Tajiri or Miyamoto ever claiming this. Rather, Tajiri expressed gratitude towards Miyamoto as something of an insider guardian angel, someone who was in Game Freak's corner, helping to pitch the Pokémon idea to Nintendo's executives.

It's been years since I've seen the ending credits for Pokémon Red, but that is one of the easiest things for you to check out to try and shed some light on your question. If Shigeru Miyamoto is credited as a "Special thanks to" person or as a producer, then you know that he wasn't part of the development team. Welp, here it is. Decided to check it out mid-paragraph. :lol: And what would you know: listed as a producer, his name appearing after all of the development team roles have been listed. Yeah. So while he is credited with helping in the production of this title, production is production, development is development. (Notice that producer Ishihara Tsunekazu is listed alongside Miyamoto here, whereas development team members like Sugimori, Nishida, and Masuda are listed earlier in their respective categorical roles.) As explained by Wikipedia's video game producer article:

A video game producer is the person in charge of overseeing development of a video game.

[...]

Most video and computer games are developed by third-party developers. In these cases, there may be external and internal producers. External producers may act as "executive producers" and are employed by the game's publisher. Internal producers work for the developer itself and have more of a hands-on role. Some game developers may have no internal producers, however, and may rely solely on the publisher's producer.

[...]

For an external producer, their job responsibilities may focus mainly on overseeing several projects being worked on by a number of developers. While keeping updated on the progress of the games being developed externally, they inform the upper management of the publisher of the status of the pending projects and any problems they may be experiencing. If a publisher's producer is overseeing a game being developed internally, their role is more akin to that of an internal producer and will generally only work on one game or a few small games.

This fits perfectly with what I remember of Tajiri's interview with Arino. Miyamoto, credited as a producer in Pokémon Red, would have been what this article classifies as an "external producer," a liaison between the two companies. He would check in on Game Freak, "How ya doin'? How ya doin'? Good, good! *nod nod*", make sure they're not falling behind on deadlines and such, and would report back to his bosses at Nintendo what he saw.

But I don't want you to have to blindly take my word for it. See if you can't find that interview (or ones like it). I am sure the information is out there because I remember hearing it myself. Good luck! Hope this was at least somewhat helpful.