Current Events > How and why did Pokemon win the popularity contest against Digimon?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was a kid in the late 90's and don't really get why Pokemon won out. All I know is that people are still talking about new Pokemon games while I haven't heard of a Digimon go or people talk about that show anymore these days.
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Because Nintendo.
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Pokemon was backed by Nintendo and got pushed harder.

It's a shame, I always vastly preferred Digimon.
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Pokemon had the better tv show, the better theme song, the rap song at the end to help you remember the names, and it wasnt some weird ass sci fi kids show
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Digimon was only good for the first 3 seasons. And the games almost always sucked.
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BLAKUboy posted...

Digimon was only good for the first 3 seasons. And the games almost always sucked.

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Blue_Inigo posted...

Pokemon had the better tv show

Now this is a bad take.
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BLAKUboy posted...

Digimon was only good for the first 3 seasons. And the games almost always sucked.

True.
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Digimon was if I recall correctly aimed at kids with kids being the only ones using Digimon.
While pokemon was an entire world where everyone lived/worked along side pokemon.
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BLAKUboy posted...

Blue_Inigo posted...

Pokemon had the better tv show

Now this is a bad take.

Im right
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There was only like, 1 season of Pokemon that was awesome and then the Pokemon League stuff is good. Otherwise, the Pokemon anime is baaaaad.
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pokemon started as a full fledged game that was designed around a really good balance of strength/weaknesses

digimon started off as ... what, a virtual pet?

the fact that pokemon's game was a legit RPG really helped sell the world and vision of it. you could be IN the pokemon world if you wanted to. the virtual pet fad died, and digimon was forced to explore other mediums, and since pokemon was already pretty established, it just didn't have an opportunity to grow.
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video game and card game tie ins. pokemon did that much better then digimon ever did.
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Pokemon Season 1 also aired a full year before Digimon Adventure Season 1 did in NA plus had an actual game (Red/Blue) to go along with it.

The first Digimon game didn't hit NA until what, early 2000? Red/Blue/Yellow were already entrenched by then and Gold/Silver came out later that year.
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Pika Pika vs some angry Japanese man
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People forget the TV show was mega popular. It really helped boost Pokemon to a phenomenon. Digimon had meh games and an ok TV show
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Digimon had bad games.
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SuperMariano3 posted...

I was a kid in the late 90's and don't really get why Pokemon won out. All I know is that people are still talking about new Pokemon games while I haven't heard of a Digimon go or people talk about that show anymore these days.

I'm pretty sure there's still Digimon games being made.

It is a big Namco-Bandai series after all
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Pokemon came first, was marketed better with stronger synergy, had a more appealing setting, had a better balance of monster design types with cute, cool, and weird Pokemon, and the cute Pokemon were not all relegated solely to first stage monsters who are useless in a serious fight in both the games and the show

Pokemon came first, had a video game, card game, Nintendo representation.

Digimon kind of sucked in comparison, tbqh. People tell me the anime was better but like...okay? The games weren't that good, if there was a card game I don't remember it.

The Digimon anime had 'some' decent stories, but that's it. I still get nostalgic watching it. CONtv on Twitch sometimes plays episodes from the first 4 seasons, and they're on Netflix too iirc. Aside from that though it had it's faults. The anime got rather annoying hearing "digi" every few seconds. tbh the theme song got old fast. Season 4/Frontier had an amazing theme. Then you had the monsters who would "evolve", but then revert.

Yes the games at the time weren't very good. A Pokemon game you could pick up and play. It taught you as you went through the beginning routes. I once rented a Digimon game for Playstation. Walked around as Gabumon a few times, had no idea what I was doing, couldn't understand the controls, and kept dying. As for the cards I do have some. Acquired them from a friend. Unfortunately nobody ever played it.

I always found Pokemon far more entertaining. I've been thoroughly enjoying the marathon on TwitchPresents.
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X-Pac_Heat posted...

Pokemon came first, had a video game, card game, Nintendo representation.

Digimon kind of sucked in comparison, tbqh. People tell me the anime was better but like...okay? The games weren't that good, if there was a card game I don't remember it.

There was a card game

It was glorified rock paper scissors
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digimon is garbo
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