From “five of the Beetles”
to Pikachu #0025

The December 1998 page has a hilly header with a HOME sign and Pikachu peeking in from the right, then the newspaper title on yellow. The browser tab already says Pokémon World. Most pictures beside the five items don’t render in this capture. The car does.

The items read like a fan club newsletter. A poll asks Have you caught them all? Do you trade with your friends? Battle with your enemies? A comic from Viz Communications opens with Something is eating the wiring in Ash's house.

The virtual pet ad warns that Pikachu may be the easiest Pokémon you'll ever catch, but you'll have to work your tail off to keep this virtual pet happy. The beanbags were at participating KFC restaurants from November 9th, for a limited time.

The Pokémon Company’s own history dates both the US launch of the Red and Blue games and the TV series, on 111 stations, to September 1998.^[1]

By May 4, 1999 the layout is the same and the news is busier. Wizards of the Coast brings its card game tour to the West Coast, with its first two stops in Los Angeles, Hasbro will retire some of their Pokémon toys, and Reader Art was Updated on April 26 with one new page of images. A Lunchables contest offers a grand prize of a party with 25 friends. The footer still says © 1998 Nintendo.

By our June 2000 capture the header is a logo: Pokémon World, The Official Pokémon website from Nintendo of America. The background is patterned yellow, and a long blue menu runs down the left. Its first button is POKéDEX. The red Pokémon News column is dated SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2000, the same day as the capture.

The news column also promotes a stage show: Pokémon Live! at Radio City Music Hall. The rest sells things. The ultimate Pokémon gaming machine is on the way! is a Pikachu Nintendo 64. Popsicle says Lock up your Lickitungs, because Pokémon-shaped ice pops are on the way. In June, a costume ad asks Do you know what you're going to be for Halloween?

One contest ran on fantasy sports rules. Draft your favorite Pokémon in our Fantasy Pokémon League, and see how your team stacks up against other Trainers across the country. If your team does well, you could win a $1,000 shopping spree!

On the right, a purple PokéDex box holds a closed dropdown called Pokémon List. Its code lists 157 names. Six come first: Ash, Brock, Gary, Misty, Prof. Oak and Team Rocket. Then 151 Pokémon in alphabetical order, from Abra to Zubat.

The instruction underneath: Just use the drop menu below to select the name of any Pokémon you're interested in and its page will load automatically.

The June 18, 2001 page keeps the yellow and adds a Movies button. At the top right a banner offers a FREE Pokémon Internet Browser: Download Yours Today! Its link goes to mediabrowser.com. The news column asks Who's that mysterious Pokémon? about a shape Floating out of the shadows of Pokémon Stadium 2, and promotes Pokémon 3: The Movie and the latest rockin' Pokémon soundtrack.

The PokéDex box now ends with Check back soon for Gold and Silver Pokémon! The dropdown in the code is the same 157 names, still only the original 151 Pokémon.

Two things are in the code but not on the screen. A block marked BEGIN CHARACTER REVEAL is commented out. It held a Team Check-up that sent you to pokemonstadium.com, where Your entry just might be chosen as Team of the Day! And a line for Internet Explorer only says Click here to make this your home page! The footer still reads © 1999, 2000 Nintendo.

The June 4, 2002 capture shows another name. A red circle says Pokémon.com and the Official Pokémon Web Site, and the whole page is a compact red panel on white. POKéDEX is still the first button, under a box called Pokémon of the Week.

The big banner shows children’s crayon drawings of Snorlax: Create a Snorlax Card Contest, Win the chance of getting your drawing of Snorlax printed on an actual Pokémon Promo card!

The tiles under it include Mewtwo Returns, Now available on videocassette and DVD, Pokémon Crystal, a ThinkChip Ash toy and the Johto League Champions cartoon. Almost every word on this page is part of a picture. The code holds just the menu’s alt texts and one copyright line, © 1999-2001 Nintendo, on a June 2002 page. A comment, End ImageReady Slices, shows how it was made: one big design cut into image slices.

2000 · Pokémon World2000 · World2002 · Pokémon.com2002 · .com

◀ ▶

After 2002 we have no homepage screenshots to show until 2013. From 2003 the page was built in Flash, and Flash doesn’t run in a modern browser. The archived copies we tried show plug-in errors, loading screens or empty panels. The code still says something.

The December 17, 2003 capture loads its header, left menu and footer as Flash files, but keeps the news as text. WE AWAKEN JIRACHI! 11/17/2003 - We have the scoop on the most secretive Pokémon ever! Another item reads: Once again, Pikachu brought a little Pokémon Pride to the very prestigious Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

In December 2007 one Flash movie, Site_v2.swf, filled the page. Underneath it in the code sits a plain list of more than 230 news links, starting with What's in the Cards? and including Wii Want to Battle! and Diamonds & Pearls are Forever. A script swaps the list for the movie and sends visitors without Flash to a page called noflash.htm, so only a browser with scripts turned off would have shown it. The 2008 and 2009 captures load the same movie with no list at all.

On January 11, 2010 The Pokémon Company International announced the complete re-launch of the online Pokémon universe with the new and improved Pokémon.com.^[2] The release listed a Pokédex containing all 493 current Pokémon, a free Fun Zone where kids play mini-games and collect Trainer Tokens, rewarding fans for time spent on the site, and a Trainer Builder for your own avatar.^[2]

One of those games was Pachirisu’s Click-Clack Attack, where players must shoot pucks into corner pockets of the playing board. For the anime, the site would start from the very first season of the animated series, which is now in its 12th season.^[2]

Our June 14, 2010 capture of the orange portal kept only part of the page, and the big Flash panel at the top is empty, so we left it out of the screenshots.

Its code fills in the rest. The token counter reads 0. The Featured Pokémon is #433 Chingling, and the featured cartoon is The Little Big Horn, Season 3, Episode 20. A hidden notice lists IE8, Chrome, Firefox and Safari under Please upgrade to one of these more modern browsers. In 2011 the replay is still partial, and in 2012 the page shows up unstyled in our replay.

The June 14, 2013 capture is the orange portal in one piece. A dark menu runs across the top: Video Games, Trading Card Game, Pokémon TV, Pokémon Fun Zone, News & Events. The main panel says Discover the New Fairy Type and More! and Be ready for the October 12th launch of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Further down are a Featured Episode, Getting' Twiggy With It, and the Featured Pokémon of June 14, #568 Trubbish.

X and Y were the first Pokémon games launched worldwide simultaneously, according to the company.^[1] The homepage already had a country picker. Its code lists 13 entries, from Brasil – Português to Россия – Русский and United States – English.

The small print has two finds. The Pokémon TV button carries a label for screen readers that reads Watch Pok#233;mon Online Now!, an é code missing its first character. And the footer now says © 2013 Pokémon/Nintendo. In 1998 it said © 1998 Nintendo, and in 2010 © 2010 Nintendo/Pokémon.

By June 15, 2014 the orange is gone. The homepage is a grid of colored tiles on a striped background, under a dark menu of icons: Explore Pokémon, Watch Pokémon TV, Play Games, Trading Card Game, Video Games, Attend Events. The biggest tile says Plan Your Trip to Hoenn! for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. In February, Nintendo Life reported that the redesigned site was compatible with mobile.^[3]

The agency behind it, POP, explained why in a 2015 award entry. It held focus groups with kids and talked to their parents, and parents were actively encouraging their children’s mobile use, perceiving that mobile devices provided them with a greater level of control over their kids’ online activities. So the team built the new pokemon.com for mobile devices first, then for desktop.^[4]

The same entry names the draw: the 700+ Pokémon, each with its own attributes. That made Explore Pokémon the center of the design, with large kid-friendly touchpoints and a Surprise button. The team reported a 70 percent increase in page views within two months.^[4]

Pikachu’s Pokédex page from February 9, 2014 is already in the new design. It says #025, 1’ 04”, 13.2 lbs, category Mouse, ability Static, and It raises its tail to check its surroundings. The tail is sometimes struck by lightning in this pose. The share buttons in its code include Google+ and Tumblr.

The June 2015 homepage leads with Don’t Miss Hoenn Gym Battles on Pokémon TV! and its footer code keeps last year’s line, © 2014 Pokémon/Nintendo. In June 2016 the menu starts with Home and Pokédex, and the first tile, New Pokémon, New Way to Battle!, shows Pokémon from Sun and Moon. Lower down, the code still lists Fun Zone minigames such as Swirlix's Cotton Candy Catch.

Pikachu’s February 2016 page has the same height, weight and category, and a new description: Whenever Pikachu comes across something new, it blasts it with a jolt of electricity. If you come across a blackened berry, it's evidence that this Pokémon mistook the intensity of its charge.

From 2017 our homepage captures are from early January, except March 3, 2024. On January 1, 2017 Sun and Moon lead with Available now!, and the next tile says New Pokémon Are Coming to Pokémon GO. The company dates Pokémon GO’s release to July 2016.^[1] Further down the code is a headline for Pokémon GO Arrives on Apple Watch.

In January 2018 the main tile is Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, next to Pokémon GO Gifts for the Holidays with a Pikachu in a Santa hat. The menu item Play Games is now Play Minigames. In January 2019 Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! for Nintendo Switch take the big tile.

The January 2019 footer code has a new formula: © 2018 Pokémon. TM, ® Nintendo. The minigames are still in the code, such as Togedemaru’s Hop-to-the-Top!. They are gone from the January 2020 homepage.

On January 1, 2020 the big tile is Sword and Shield’s Wild Area News, about Magikarp in raids. The menu has changed: Video Games & Apps comes third, and Pokémon TV moves after the card game. One headline in the code is The Many Failures of Ash Ketchum. By our January 2021 capture the icon menu is white, and Pinterest has joined the footer’s social links.

January 2022 has a trainer’s guide for Sinnoh and Get Ready for the New Year at My Pokémon Place. Pikachu’s page that month has a form dropdown, and its code includes a second form, Gigantamax Pikachu. Its height there is 68' 11"+ and its weight is ????.? lbs. The description on screen is new again: Pikachu that can generate powerful electricity have cheek sacs that are extra soft and super stretchy.

By March 2023 Pikachu is #0025, with four digits. The January 2023 homepage is about Tera Raids in Scarlet and Violet, and its footer adds the game’s makers: ©1995 - 2022 Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc.

The March 3, 2024 capture leads with See All the Latest News from the Pokémon Day 2024 Pokémon Presents. Under it: A New Legend Is about to Begin for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and Pokémon TCG Pocket Is Coming. TCG Pocket came out that October.^[1] In the menu, Animation stands where Pokémon TV used to be. Pokémon TV itself ended on March 28, 2024.^[5]

On January 1, 2025 the homepage leads with Prismatic Evolutions cards and a quiz that looks back at 2024. The footer has an email signup, and the confirmation in the code promises We'll send you a few emails every week. On January 1, 2026 the big tile is The World of Pokémon’s 2025 Year in Review: This past year was filled with all sorts of Pokémon fun! How many of these moments do you remember?

Some lines outlive their features. The 2026 code still holds the message You've been awarded 0 Token(s) for watching Pokémon TV! Its footer, on New Year’s Day 2026, says ©2023 Pokémon.

Pikachu’s page from January 16, 2026 says When it is angered, it immediately discharges the energy stored in the pouches in its cheeks. Height 1’ 04”, weight 13.2 lbs, as in 2014. The 1998 homepage offered five Beetles from a yellow newsletter. The 2026 one asks which moments of the year you remember, and Pokédex sits second in the menu, right after Home.