Pocketpair has revealed a surprising new partnership for their survival game hit, Palworld.
They made the announcement on the official Palworld Twitter account:
“Pocketpair is excited to announce a joint venture company with Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. and Aniplex, Inc., to establish Palworld Entertainment, Inc., for the purpose of accelerating the multifaceted global development of Palworld and its further expansion!”
So let’s break this down. Both Sony Music Entertainment, Aniplex, and the PlayStation company, Sony Interactive Entertainment, are under the same parent company, Sony Group. However, they are completely separate operations.
Aniplex is the anime company side of Sony, producing shows like Fullmetal Alchemist, Gurren Lagann, and the Fate series. They are also a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, which is one of the oldest and most successful division in Sony.
In the same way that The Legend of Zelda movie got greenlit under Sony Pictures, this new working agreement with Pocketpair happened outside of PlayStation’s control. While Pocketpair has stated an interest in bringing Palworld to PlayStation 5, the game remains console exclusive to Xbox Series X|S.
But that isn’t really what Sony Music and Aniplex are interested in. This agreement mirrors closely the arrangement Nintendo made with Game Freak and Creatures when they formed The Pokemon Company.
In fact, Pocketpair’s official press release says as such:
“The JV (joint venture) will be responsible for developing the reach of the intellectual property and for expanding commercial business endeavors, including the global licensing and merchandising activities associated with “Palworld,” outside of the interactive game.”
This is a favorable project for Pocketpair, as Palworld remains popular in Early Access, we won’t really know if it will remain popular and successful in the future. It has an active player community now, but is far from its player peak when it first went viral.
For Aniplex and Sony Music, it’s a bet worth taking. They did greenlight projects with the Fate series and Fullmetal Alchemist, meaning they took the risk that fans would stay interested in them enough for those shows to be profitable.
So it sounds like we will be getting a Palworld anime in the future. But in the meantime, Pocketpair says their first products will be Palworld merchandise that will be debuting in this week’s Bilibili World 2024 event. Aniplex will also be selling this merchandise online very soon.
It will certainly be interesting to see how this business deal will play out if, as some suspect, The Pokemon Company is preparing some IP infringement lawsuit against Palworld over similarities to Pokemon. While there are some gamers who are sure that suit is set to happen, neither Nintendo or The Pokemon Company have directly said they are investigating or planning to sue Pocketpair. Lest we forget, by the way, Studio Ghibli may have a good case for suing Pocketpair too.
In any case, this is certainly good news for Palworld fans, and we’re sure they’ll be excited to see what merchandise they can get for the game soon.
