Palworld's Studio Wants a Switch 2 Port Even as Nintendo Sues It

CEO Takuro Mizobe says he'd 'love to have' Switch talks while Nintendo's Pokémon patent suit is still in a Tokyo court.

Asked whether Palworld might ever come to Nintendo Switch 2, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe started with two words: "Of course." Nintendo is suing his studio.

Mizobe made the pitch in an interview with Video Games Chronicle, published Tuesday, calling Nintendo's new console "a really amazing platform," especially for Japan's games industry. He kept it conditional. If a chance ever came to discuss putting Palworld on a Switch system, he told VGC, "then we'd love to have those conversations." IGN, which picked up the interview, noted the lawsuit would have to run its course before any talks like that could start.

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company sued Pocketpair in the Tokyo District Court in September 2024, alleging that Palworld infringes three Japanese patents. Automaton reported that the case is believed to center on catching creatures and on gliding while riding them. Pocketpair has said it's confident the game doesn't infringe and that the patents are invalid anyway.

Players have already paid for the fight. Patch v0.3.11, released in November 2024, took away throwing a Pal Sphere to call out a Pal you already own. Now the Pal just appears next to the player while the sphere is held out. IGN pointed out what that cost: there's no more lobbing a Pal to an exact spot to pull an enemy's attention or hit it from another angle. A May 2025 patch, v0.5.5, replaced gliding on Pals with a glider item, Automaton reported.

Pocketpair called those changes preventive. In November 2025 the plaintiffs narrowed their claims to older versions of Palworld only, Automaton reported, citing Games Fray and its own review of the court's records. Automaton said the narrowing may be tied to the updates. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are still seeking an injunction.

The two companies already share a storefront, though. Pocketpair is the listed publisher of Overdungeon, a card roguelike that came out on Nintendo's U.S. eShop on Jan. 9, 2025, about four months after the suit was filed. Nintendo's listing marks it as supported on Switch 2, and its own pitch is "Play cards → Create infinite alpacas → Your opponent dies." So the question isn't whether Pocketpair can do business with Nintendo. It's whether the game at the center of the lawsuit can.

That game is a big one to leave off a platform. Palworld has passed 40 million players overall, IGN reported, and its 1.0 launch in July pulled nearly a million people playing at once on Steam.

The next date that matters is Nov. 9, when the Tokyo District Court is scheduled to share a preliminary view of the case, according to IGN and court records cited by Automaton. IGN's read is that a Nintendo loss looks more and more likely. Saying "of course" was the easy part. The court speaks next.

Source: ign.com, retrieved October 28, 2026. Other sources: automaton-media.com, nintendo.com, Wikipedia.