Pokemon is celebrating its 20th anniversary after Nintendo published a pair of video games for the first Game Boy in 1996. Since then it has become the world's second biggest money-making video game and media franchise only behind Mario. On February 26, Friday the Japanese gaming giant unveiled the next big Pokemon games named Sun and Moon, which will be launched for Nintendo 3DS in time for the holiday shopping season 2016.     

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The new Pokemon games were leaked a day before the official announcement via the company's short online event, due to a trademark registration in Europe, according to The Verge. It is the first major titles since Pokemon X and Y were rolled out in 2013.

Sun and Moon will have one global release date and be launched in nine languages. That includes simplified and traditional Chinese.

Tsunekazu Ishihara is CEO of The Pokemon Company. He shared during a presentation that he hopes people can solve language issues by playing video games with people around the world.

Some details of the game and possible concept art were released. A big plus is that the two new titles will support Pokemon Bank cloud service so players can transfer pokemon from other versions of the game.

Nintendo has plans to launch several games this year to celebrate the 20th birthday of the big franchise. Next month the fighting game Pokken Tournament will be released on Wii U. Meanwhile, the augmented reality (AR) game Pokemon GO will roll out to iOS and Android devices.  

There will even be something for retro gamers. Nintendo is also releasing original old-school Pokemon games on Nintendo 3DS to help celebrate the little creatures' turning 20.

The Pokemon franchise started when a new concept popped into the head of Japanese designer Satoshi Tajiri. He had the idea of a new Game Freak title that would require players to catch and train a monster/pet for battles.

It took Tajiri six years to finish Pokemon and Game Freak almost went bankrupt, according to Time. The game designer wanted to make sure the pokemon were small and controllable like monsters within people.

Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirrel were the first monsters in the two-decade-old franchise.  They have been featured on several gaming consoles and will be available for smartphones and tablets with the release of AR game Pokemon GO. 

Here's a first look at Pokemon Sun and Moon: