Before trying to correct me about the title of this article, a TLDR story of Pokémon as an IP. Since 1998, it was so popular that Nintendo needed to create a subsidiary to deal with every aspect of merchandising, marketing, etc and hence, the creation of The Pokémon Company.

Game Freak, while maintaining its autonomy, is the studio creator/developer of the original Pokémon games, but still are NOT officially part of The Pokémon Company.

Today is a good example of this unusual relationship within Nintendo as it was announced that Game Freak co-founder, Junichi Masuda, has joined The Pokémon Company.

Masuda joined as The Pokémon Company’s “Chief Creative Fellow”, in which he will be helping TPC to transcend the boundaries of video games.

Masuda not only co-founded Game Freak to sell Shigeru Miyamoto the idea of Pocket Monster back in the 90's, but served as part of the development part of many of it's games and by the Pokémon X/Y days, he ascended as Director and pretty much every important aspect of the franchise until his exit from duties by 2018, being Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu, and Let’s Go, Eevee his last work.

The news is in parallel when Nintendo has begun the promotional season for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the newest main entries and testing another generation with the Nintendo Switch.