When I was ummm 12ish, I got the Gameboy camera. There were unlockable features in the game (like the more photos you took the more random albums and stamps etc you could explore). Needless to say, a few of these stamps were pokemon (of which had not gained popularity in North America yet). If I recall, the pokemon were the 3 final evolutions of the starter pokemon, maybe mew or Mewtwo, and I think Pikachu as well. Soon after, I got both blue and red. Of course though, I was at the age where Pokemon at the time ('98ish?) started to get unpopular for junior high kids. So I played it every once and a while. That was with my original gameboy, then I bought a colour game boy, then later on an Advance SP, but never bought their respective pokemon generational games. (there really wasn't a reason, I guess it was because I never thought about it). It was not until I got my DS that I decided to try it out again, and this is like 10 years later, haha.