TCG. In my school (this was when I was about 9) only a couple of people had gameboys and the games, and we didn't care much for it.
EVERYBODY had the cards though. And I mean everybody. We traded, we battled, we played... At some point after I had transferred to another school, I heard they banned pokémon cards there, because kids were ripping each other off with stupid trades with cards they had paid for XD
So yeah, it was the TCG. And we watched the anime too, of course. I didn't play the game until much later, when the GBA came out. And then I wanted the Yellow game, to get Pikachu, even though Gold and Silver were out.