Welcome all and thanks for joining us. We are very surprised by the extent of the success we have had in the states. The ideas for each of these monsters came from the imagination of the software developers at Game Freak who get these ideas from their childhood experiences, including from reading Manga, the name for Japanese comic books.
Ideas also come from scary experiences they had as kids, catching insects, and so forth.
The next big thing will be the Gold and Silver versions. Animation and card games with new characters will be issued based on these two new versions. Look for Stadium around April and Gold and Silver in October. The Pikachu's Vacation has already been shown in Australia. Ash's Pikachu will not evolve.