Shuntaro Furukawa, the president of Nintendo, has weighed in on the ongoing discussion surrounding Palworld and its alleged resemblance to the Pokemon anime. Here’s what the Nintendo President had to say about Palworld.
Reuters reports that Furukawa addressed Palworld during a Q&A session at Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing. Interestingly, Furukawa did not address Palworld directly but said, “We will take appropriate action against those that infringe our intellectual property rights.”
This comment is also in line with The Pokemon Company’s statement from two weeks ago, where TPC said that they have not granted any permission to use Pokemon’s intellectual property or assets to the game. Furthermore, The Pokemon Company said that they “intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokemon.”
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Palworld has become a huge breakout success since going into early access on PC and Xbox last month. As of February 1, it had sold 12 million copies on Steam and had 7 million players on Xbox. However, the online multiplayer game has been accused of plagiarism by many fans due to the visible similarity between Pokemon and Palworld’s character designs. Apart from the designs, the gameplay is different from what we have seen in other Pokemon games.
It remains to be seen what actions Nintendo and The Pokemon Company will take against Palworld, but it is known how aggressive Nintendo is with lawsuits, and recently, the Nintendo hacker even claimed that Nintendo sent a “message” to others with his conviction. Elsewhere, Palworld’s modding community took several steps back when a Pokemon mod made its way to Palworld, citing that the distance is key to maintain so that Nintendo’s lawyers don’t “nuke” them with litigious actions.
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