Despite Nintendo's Ongoing Lawsuit, Palworld CEO Calls Switch 2 'Really Amazing' and Wants to Talk About a Port
The irony is impossible to miss. Even as the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company continues to play out in Japanese court, Pocketpair CEO and founder Takuro Mizobe is openly praising the Nintendo Switch 2. Speaking during a candid interview from the studio's wall-free, open-plan office in Tokyo's Gotanda district, the Pocketpair boss made it clear that he would gladly discuss bringing Palworld to Nintendo's hybrid successor while detailing how his team is fighting to keep its indie DNA intact after surpassing 40 million players.
'A Really Amazing Platform': Takuro Mizobe Extends an Olive Branch for Switch 2
For a long time, bringing the monster-catching survival hit to a Nintendo system was ruled out on purely technical grounds. Back in June 2024, Takuro Mizobe noted that the original Switch hardware was simply too limited to handle the game, before Pocketpair communications director and publishing manager John "Bucky" Buckley stated in March 2025 that a Switch 2 version was "100% worth considering" provided the new system proved "beefy enough" to run it.
Now that the Nintendo Switch 2 has demonstrated its ability to handle demanding current-generation releases, Mizobe has no hesitation about expressing his admiration for the hardware and his willingness to talk business:
"Of course. First of all, I should say that we think the Switch 2 is a really amazing platform, not just for games globally, but especially here in Japan and for the Japanese games industry. It's been an incredible platform. If there's ever a future where we have the opportunity to discuss or consider bringing Palworld to the Switch platform in some way, then we'd love to have those conversations."
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The Patent Lawsuit Elephant in the Room Ahead of November 9
While Mizobe was legally unable to comment directly on the active litigation during the interview, resolving the dispute with Nintendo remains the obvious prerequisite before any Switch 2 port can materialize. Filed in September 2024 in Japan, the joint lawsuit from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company targets alleged patent infringement tied to gameplay mechanics rather than creature artwork.
The legal battle has already shifted in scope since its initial filing. Nintendo modified its claims to focus on older builds of the game after Pocketpair rolled out patches removing contested mechanics, including throwing a Pal Sphere to summon a creature onto the field and gliding while hanging directly from a Pal. The case now approaches a major milestone, with the Tokyo District Court scheduled to disclose its preliminary view on November 9. Interestingly, the courtroom clash has not kept Pocketpair off Nintendo hardware altogether: the studio released its debut roguelike card and tower defense mashup, Overdungeon, on the original Switch early last year.
40 Million Players and Version 1.0: Why Pocketpair Refuses to Become a Palworld Factory
Beyond the Switch 2 question, Mizobe reflected on how Pocketpair has managed its explosive growth since he founded the company in 2015 with university friends from a web engineering background rather than traditional Japanese game development. Operating with an "open-source" studio culture where players chat directly with developers on Discord and visitors can try a Palworld UFO catcher in the lobby, the team used community feedback throughout Early Access and into Version 1.0 to pivot away from the dark "sweatshop" tone of early trailers toward a cozier life alongside Pals, a direction continuing with the upcoming Palworld Side by Side winter update.
Following the million-selling success of Craftopia and the phenomenon of Palworld (which drew 25 million players in its first month in January 2024 and now exceeds 40 million players), the franchise has expanded into a licensing joint venture with Sony Music, mobile spin-offs with Krafton, and an official trading card game from Bushiroad. Yet, echoing why Palworld refuses to follow the Fortnite live-service playbook, Mizobe insists he will never lock 100% of his workforce onto a single IP:
"Rather than thinking about it in terms of things like 'live service,' we're more focused on finding the best way to continue Palworld that makes sense for the players. But to say that we would put 100% of Pocketpair's resources into just making Palworld isn't something that we want to do. If you look purely at our size and numbers, perhaps we're approaching the AA level now. But we still want to preserve that indie freedom, where we can experiment, combine genres like we did when looking at Satisfactory or RimWorld, and develop games without people constantly looking over our shoulders."
That same mindset drives Pocketpair Publishing, which Mizobe says was established "not to make money," but to help smaller independent creators navigate business regulations, awards, and launch logistics, pointing to solo developer Honda-san's Cassette Boy as a project he considers "nothing short of a genius" creation. And if he could travel back to the day before Palworld launched in January 2024 to give himself one piece of advice? Mizobe laughs: "I'd probably tell myself to buy more servers!"
My Perspective
You have to admire Takuro Mizobe's sheer nerve here. Watching the head of Pocketpair publicly shower the Nintendo Switch 2 with praise less than two weeks before the Tokyo District Court shares its preliminary view on Nintendo's patent lawsuit is a masterclass in cheerful diplomacy. On one hand, his legal team is locked in a tug-of-war with Kyoto's lawyers over sphere-throwing and gliding patents; on the other, he is calmly reminding everyone that his 40-million-player juggernaut would feel right at home on Japan's hottest console.
And honestly, as surreal as it sounds right now, a peace treaty followed by a Switch 2 port would make all the sense in the world once the legal dust settles. Nintendo's new hybrid finally has the horsepower to run Palworld properly, and portable co-op survival is practically tailor-made for the Japanese market. If both sides eventually shake hands and put Palworld on the Switch 2 eShop, it will easily go down as one of the wildest plot twists of this console generation.
Based on the outskirts of New York City, Chaya 'Chayane' spent five years studying software engineering in Montreal before returning to her home state. A Full-Stack developer and Deep Learning AI architecture researcher, she explores neural networks and algorithmic optimization while engineering data pipelines for Retrocharting and Gamescharting alongside Grimtag. A gamer for over 20 years and an avid collector of Nintendo history and The Legend of Zelda, she explored World of Warcraft's Azeroth before bringing her deep technical background to video game analysis.
