Pokemon Red And Blue Development Was Plagued With PC Issues
I learned from an early age how to fix my computer. Mostly because no one else around knew how to help me when my old Pentium 2 wouldn't power on. As it turns out, those same sort of skills helped save the Pokemon games from certain doom, before they ever made their debut.
Since it's the 20th anniversary of Pokemon, one of the original games' creators made a short video talking about his time working on the games. Junichi Masuda of Game Freak spent six years working as a programmer, composer, and sound designer on Pokemon Red and Green. And it would seem that during those years, he went through a lot of computers.
Back in the 90's, there was no Geek Squad to help out when you have computer issues. So Masuda had to spend time learning how to fix his own computers when something went wrong. And despite spending a lot of time fixing things, he still managed to go through three or four different machines during those six years.
He jokes about how the games might not have gotten made if he hadn't been able to fix the computers. It's hard to imagine that happening, 20 years after the fact. However, no one knew how big the franchise would be back then, and with enough constant technical difficulties, it's very possible that the game could have been canned. Let's all just enjoy the fact that this alternate reality never came to be.