The legal battle between Nintendo and Pocketpair is ongoing, but the Palworld developer hasn’t ruled out a Switch 2 version of its creature collecting survival game.
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are currently embroiled in ongoing litigation with Pocketpair in Japan, with patents that revolve around how Pokémon games work at the heart of the lawsuit. IP experts have indicated that Nintendo may only receive a $30,000 payout if it wins, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Nintendo will lose.
Skirting around the elephant in the room in an interview with VGC, Pocketpair CEO Takuru Mizobe said he’d love to get Palworld on Switch 2. “Of course,” Mizobe replied when asked if the studio had Switch 2 ambitions. “First of all, I should say that we think the Switch 2 is a really amazing platform, not just for games globally, but especially here in Japan and for the Japanese games industry.
“It’s been an incredible platform. If there’s ever a future where we have the opportunity to discuss or consider bringing Palworld to the Switch platform in some way, then we’d love to have those conversations.”
Of course, the current legal dispute would have to play out before those conversations can happen, and that’s assuming there’s no bad blood once legal proceedings are done and dusted.
Nintendo filed a patent infringement lawsuit in September 2024, but the complaint was modified in November 2025 after Palworld updates changed some of the most egregious of the Pokemon-inspired game mechanics. One such mechanic was the ability to throw a sphere to summon a creature, which was removed in Early Access patch v0.3.11.
Now when you summon a Pal, it simply spawns directly beside your character while you hold out the sphere. This change to avoid stepping on Nintendo’s patent removed some of the tactical options the player had, since they were no longer able to summon a Pal to a specific spot to draw aggro or hit an enemy from a different angle.
The scope of the lawsuit is reduced, but Pocketpair versus Nintendo and The Pokémon Company remains an active case within the Tokyo District Court. A preliminary view — which is a first-impression assessment of a subject before all the facts are known or a final decision is made — is planned for November 9 this year.
Palworld hit its 1.0 release in July, netting close to 1 million concurrent players on Steam. In total, Palworld has reached over 40 million players.
Kirk McKeand is a Contributor on IGN News. Find him on Twitter @MckKirk