Palworld's Release in Japan on Hold Indefinitely Thanks to Nintendo Lawsuit

Let's just say that Nintendo has a case. Why now?

Not really of interest me, but I do find it strange Nintendo can patent the mechanic of throwing and object to capture a creature, but specially as this predates Pokémon.

@naruball I think a previous article mentioned that they were working their lawyers hard to find the best reasons for the lawsuit, so maybe it just took that long

Let’s play it while we can.

It’s not like Nintendo hasn’t taken a lot of ideas from the whole gaming scene over the years, sometimes blatantly, but here I do stand with them as this game really capitalizes on people associating it with Pokémon and Pokémon characters.

I hope Nintendo loses this lawsuit, whether they are actually right or not.
The idea that they would sue their apparent competitors into oblivion instead of just making better games is so undeniably pathetic, I can't even

Poor Pokémon enjoyers can´t catch a break with this company

@Nei stolen designs from dragon quest is the most famous but yeah take got a long dark history

@Drago201 and monster -snatching mechanic as well, from DQV. I hope the DQ designs come up in the Pal World lawsuit.

As first hand playing experience some were really shocking imho: Stunt Race FX is a blatant Virtua Racing ripoff, Breath of the wild is a love letter to shadow of the colossus. Little Big Planet was pillaged in concept and aesthetic by several Nintendo games …and yeah the list goes on and on.

@thefourfoldroot1
The patent itself is kinda generic and probably wouldn't hold out in court, but when you factor in that Palworld also uses a spherical object... then yeah, now Nintendo has a case because throwing a ball to capture a monster is often associated with a certain game.

@Yagami Nintendo consistently release some of the best, most creative games every generation - three of the top five games of all time on Metacritic are Nintendo. Eight of the top twenty are them. And no one is buying the Switch (which is close to being the best-selling console of all time) for its potato-spec third party ports.

These guys aren't their competitors, and the moment that footage from Palworld was first seen it screamed "Nintendo lawsuit" because, well, just look at it.

They're hurting Nintendo's/TPC's mind share that people have with Pokémon that's for sure and I'd say it's about time since the games are just rinse and repeat buggy messes that comes from two big multi billion dollar companies. I can imagine that will be a small reason and it is a petty one at that.

This is interesting as this implies the patents only effect Japan and not the rest of the world.

Am i the only one who has the game size as 5 gb on ps5? Any explanation for this?

As a personal data point, I’d heard the name Palworld but not being a PC gamer had never seen it and not been across the controversy… but for at least half the trailer shown in today’s reveal I was utterly convinced - and trying to compute the how or why - that Nintendo had made a Pokémon game for the PS5. 👀🙀😅

@EYEBALL Palworld is an ant compared to Pokemon so no this has nothing to do with it impacting Pokemon as it doesn't. As for "rinse and repeat" yeah that's objectively false considering Legends and S&V were massive shake ups for the series.

Wait, so copying a formula and making something similar isn’t allowed? Why didn’t Nintendo sue when Sony made PS All-Stars?

@Yagami I was under the impression that they usually sue people/companies, etc right away. Faster than anyone.

from my perspective, there are 'similarities' - but the game isn't the same as Pokemon - its as different as Doom and Call of Duty. Both Doom and CoD are First Person Shooter, both have very similar shooting mechanics, both have similarities and they all copy the hands/gun at the bottom centre style, often with Map top Left and Ammo bottom right. These have more in common than Palworld, which also borrows from minecraft with Resource gathering/building and 'Pals' are often not used to 'battle' like Pokemon, but to do some of the chores etc at your 'base' leading to a very different Game-play loop...

Sorry off topic: Atlus just released a prologue demo for Metaphor on PSN (and maybe for Xbox & PC as well). It has english & japan dub/sub, size 27 gigs.

On topic. As usual from Nintendo. I found it ironic though that Pokemon design is a blatant copy of Dragon Quest monsters. And the capture + collect monsters and used them in battle was started by Atlus Megami Tensei back in 1987 where players can persuade aka 'capture' demons and summon them in battle.

But here we are with Nintendo suing small devs :/

@CielloArc
And yet it was done before that game. The timing of the patent is also interesting. It’s seems a stretch, but I guess easy to get around by making the capture device a cube, or just a gun shot or something. Don’t see why they should have to though.

I can only agree that from a distant point of view, for someone who does not really know what this is all about, this game REALLY seems like a direct Pokémon rip-off, capitalizing in all its advertising campaign on this confusion for the mass market ("Hey... is it... Is it Pokémon ? WOW WITH GUNS NOW !!!!")

So I think, in this case, Nintendo may have, well... a case.

But I might be wrong, what do I know ?

@DennisReynolds These things usually only directly affect the country where the company is located/the patent is filed.

For example when a patent troll sues Apple in the US, any threat made against Apple (be it a ruling or a temporary measure while the case is ongoing) only applies in the US. Any effect elsewhere would require either a proven case first, or a separate suit.

In this case I think this is just them being cautious. It's probably not a good idea to release a product you are being sued over in the country you are being sued in a few days after the suit is filed.

@LowDefAl Oh i know that i'm just saying Nintendo didn't try taking it out for other countries as well.

@Nei I always chuckle at the memory of Ubisoft's Immortals being accused of "cloning BotW" while many ongoing playthroughs like my own were still busy climbing Sheikah towers to unlock more of the map.

@DennisReynolds and Legends is getting a followup now.

But I was told by multiple people ditching PS5 because of the Pro that Nintendo was super consumer-friendly...

@DennisReynolds Yeah i agree with you on that one mucker because the last time i kept up with the games it was years ago (after gen 4 i think) and the recent ones do look different compared to the isometric top down games from years ago but with the massive popularity and uproar, when it came out, i can imagine it did rattle their cages and it popped their bubbles for a brief moment that has lead them to start thinking differently but like you and i said, it is a ant and the mind share they have will probably not make much of a difference but a small amount of money could be lost.

@naruball Yea that has been my general understanding as well. I´m sure they had "lawsuit" in mind the second Palworld launched, but I guess they had to try really hard to find one that would actually have a high chance of succeeding. It already sounds like they´re grasping at straws from what little I read, so initial ideas for the lawsuit must have been even worse

Nintendo love a good lawsuit. I bought it so even if it gets delisted I'm still having my fun

@ButterySmooth30FPS None of the billion dollar corporations whose hardware and software you buy are consumer friendly. They all have things that they are better on than the others, and they all have things that they are worse on than the others.

Learn to be suspicious of all of them, and call them out equally.

@MrPeanutbutterz I mean, I´m sure Nintendo makes some great games nowadays (I hate the new 3d zelda formula, BotW killed my favorite Nintendo series, what a ***** game)

That said I do think Palworld is great and much needed competition towards Pokémon, because:

• it makes modern Pokémon games look bad
• it gets people to not buy a Switch

In the same vein of creature collector games, I would argue SMT and Dragon Quest Monsters are competition for Pokémon. And when you compare all of those games, Pokémon really shines as the worst of the bunch (in my opinion)