"Pokémon" vs "Palworld": Nintendo sues Pocketpair

Many had rather expected this: Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are suing Pocketpair, the developer of the hit game "Palworld". In a press release, Nintendo writes that the court case concerns several patent infringements. The lawsuit was filed with a court in Tokyo on September 18.

Nintendo is seeking an injunction and damages, the press release continues. "Nintendo will continue to take action against any infringement of its intellectual property rights, including the Nintendo brand itself, in order to protect the intellectual property that it has worked hard to develop over the years."

"Palworld" is a survival video game released earlier this year featuring pocket monsters that are reminiscent of Nintendo's classic "Pokémon" pocket monsters, both conceptually and in their individual designs. Shortly after the launch, several montages circulated on X, which are intended to show parallels between the creatures from "Palworld" and Pokémon.

2 million players at the same time

The enormous success of "Palworld" also contributed to the discussions. At its peak, the survival game was played by over 2 million players simultaneously, making it one of the biggest hype games of the year. In the meantime, the excitement surrounding "Palworld" has died down somewhat. However, a very respectable 30,000 people still play the title simultaneously on Steam every day. There are also console versions of Palworld, which is also part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass subscription.

It was foreseeable that Nintendo would take legal action against "Palworld". Confronted with many questions about "Palworld" and its success, Nintendo's The Pokémon Company stated back in January that it was investigating the game. "We intend to investigate any actions that infringe intellectual property rights related to Pokémon and take appropriate action," the company wrote about "Palworld" at the time.

So far, Pocketpair has not commented on Nintendo's lawsuit.

(dahe)