>>37734273Because they had absolutely no idea it was going to explode in popularity the way it did? Red and Green only had modest success initially in Japan, until a CoroCoro contest to distribute 20 Mews had a large spike in sales, and a rush to release JP Blue, with updated graphics, bug fixes, and game engine tweaks. Keep in mind Pokémon hadn't come out in the US yet when gen 2 development started after JP Blue came out. Previous JRPGs like Super Mario RPG and Earthbound didn't sell very well in the US, so they didn't initially plan for Red and Blue in the US until it really took off. You can tell they didn't exactly rush the localization out, as they waited almost 3 years after Red and Green came out in Japan in early 1996, to release it in the US in September 1998.
