Palworldcould come to other platforms, potentially ending itsXboxconsole exclusivity. While not revealing which platforms are being considered developer Pocketpair says that it is “in talks” to make these ports possible.
This comes shortly afterPlayStation’s head of indies, Shuhei Yoshida,strongly suggested that Sony wants Palworld to release on PS5. While Pocketpair doesn’t mention these talks being done withSony, it is the most likely candidate, as a port toNintendo Switchis not expected.
Confirmation that ports are in the works comes from Pocketpair founder, Takuro Mizobe, in an interview withBloomberg. Here, Mizoba sheds some light on the behind-the-scenes of Palworld’s devleopment in the wake of its groundbreaking success, including the news that more ports are expected.
On top of bringing Palworld to PlayStation, it could also be ported to other storefronts and subscription services. For example, anyone wanting to pick it up on PC has to go through either Microsoft’s storefront or Steam, but it might see a wider release in response to the high demand. But right now, it’s a big win for Xbox, who nabbed the game for Xbox Game Pass from day one, giving it the kind of exciting exclusive that some have said the service has been lacking.
Being such a huge success for Pocketpair, further ports seem inevitable. It’s in a good position to negotiate too, asPalworld broke Steam records when it launched, reaching a staggering 2,101,867 concurrent players at its peak. While we don’t have player stats for Xbox, we do know that itcollectively sold seven million copies in just five days, far beyond the developer’s expectations.
In the Bloomberg interview, Pocketpair confirms that this resulted in a huge payday for the small team, making “tens of billions of yen” off the back of a budget that was less than one billion yen. Since Pocketpair is an independent company, it’s likely to keep much of that money for itself, so it doesn’t come as a great surprise to learn that the team doesn’t plan to accept any acquisition offers anytime soon. Considering all the layoffs hitting larger companies and their smaller subsidiaries, that seems like a logical move in the current climate.
Palworld launched in early access on January 10 of this year. It doesn’t have a date set for its full launch, nor do we know what other platforms it’s targeting.
