system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How and why did Pokemon win the popularity contest against Digimon?
gpt
The Pokemon franchise was already around for two years before Digimon were even created.  Also, Pokemon began with a wildly popular video game franchise, shortly followed by the cartoon show.  Digimon were originally Tamagotchi-style virtual pets, and didn't achieve near the notoriety.  By the time the Digimon cartoon came out in 1999, Pokemon was already on its 2nd generation of games, was two years into the TV show, released its first movie, and released its card game.