The franchise began as "Pocket Monsters: Red" and "Green" (later released outside of Japan as "Pokémon Red" and "Blue"), a pair of video games for the original Game Boy handheld system that were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in February 1996. It soon became a media mix franchise adapted into various different media. "Pokémon" has since become the highest-grossing media franchise of all time. The original video game series is the second-best-selling video game franchise (behind Nintendo's "Mario" franchise) with more than 368million copies sold and onebillion mobile downloads, and it spawned a hit anime television series that has become the most successful video game adaptation with over 20 seasons and 1,000 episodes in 169 countries. In addition, the "Pokémon" franchise includes the world's top-selling toy brand, the top-selling trading card game with over 30.4billion cards sold, an anime film series, a live-action film, books, manga comics, music, merchandise, and a theme park. The franchise is also represented in other Nintendo media, such as the "Super Smash Bros." series, where various "Pokémon" characters are playable.