Palworld PS5 Release Indefinitely Delayed In Japan Amidst Pokemon Lawsuit

Summary

Palworld’s long-awaited PS5 port shadow-dropped yesterday following the State of Play showcase, but its release in Japan has been indefinitely delayed and is likely due to theNintendolawsuit.

Yesterday’s State of Play was a generally low-key affairoutside of the announcement of Ghost of Yōtei, but it did hold a few interesting surprises.One of them was the reveal that Palworld is finally launching on PS5after initiallylaunching on Xbox and PC towards the start of the year, something that would usually be a point of celebration.

It was a bit of an awkward watch considering what’s been happening with Palworld over the last few weeks. As you no doubt know,Nintendo and The Pokemon Company are suing Palworld developer Pocketpairdue to the game infringing on “multiple patent rights”, something that might have impacted the game’s release on PS5 in Japan.

Palworld’s PS5 Release In Japan Seemingly Delayed Due To Pokemon Lawsuit

Although Palworld was shadow-dropped on PS5 for most areas of the world last night, there was one notable omission - Japan.As reported by GamesRadar,a statement was made over on the official Japanese Palworld Twitter accountthat confirmed its absence was purposeful, and that thre release date “has not yet been decided”.

The statement from Palworld’s account confirms that it’s doing its best to “deliver to PS5 users as soon as possible” and asks Japanese players to wait a little longer for the game’s release. No official reason was given for the delay, but it seems very likely that it’sdue to the lawsuit that was filed in Tokyo by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company last week.

The release date in Japan has not yet been decided. We apologize to everyone in Japan who was looking forward to it, but all of our staff will do our best to deliver it to PS5 users as soon as possible, so we hope you will wait for a little longer.

To make matters even stranger, Palworld is already available for purchase on Xbox and PC in Japan, which makes it even more obvious that it’s due to the lawsuit. It’s not clear when the game will launch in Japan with that in mind, but it does seem that Pockepair is trying to make it happen as soon as possible.