Analyst believes Nintendo can succeed in Palworld lawsuit

Nintendo shocked the video game industry this week when it announced a lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair for infringing on “multiple patent rights.” While Nintendo hasn’t revealed with patents it believes Pocketpair infringed upon — and Pocketpair has no idea either — one analyst thinks that Nintendo will probably win out in the end.

In an interview with 404 Media, Serkan Toto, the CEO of Japan game industry consulting company Kantan Games, said that the video game conglomerate has a history of suing other companies on patent grounds. While some cases may have been settled out of court, the point is that Nintendo succeeds in some form, whether by getting licensing fees or getting a game, app, or product taken down.

“I think they’re trying to damage them financially as much as they can,” Toto said, adding that he doesn’t believe “Nintendo will even think about filing a lawsuit like this without being as sure as they can that they’re going to win this.”

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Before Palworld even entered early access in January 2024, many noted the similarities between it and Pokémon, calling it “Pokémon with guns” in conversation. When the open-world survival game came out, players found Pal (the game’s term for creatures) designs that looked, in some cases, nearly identical to certain Pokémon. However, beyond the idea of catching creatures in the wild, Palworld is more about survival, crafting, and putting your Pals to work building and maintaining your base than it is a Pokémon clone. Still, the question lingered if Nintendo would take legal action.

What patents are involved in the lawsuit hasn’t been confirmed, but many believe it involves one for catching a character in a field with a ball.

Toto believes that Nintendo saw how much money Palworld was possibly making because