Palworld developer Pocketpair has shot down rumours of the studio being acquired by Microsoft after being heavily marketed on Xbox Game Pass. Players speculated that due to the heavy marketing from Microsoft which boasted about Palworld‘s inclusion on its subscription service, there might be a potential acquisition on the way. According to the developer, no acquisition talks are happening right now.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe revealed that it’s open to the idea of partnering with other studios or being purchased outright but at the moment, no such acquisitions talks are happening, even with Microsoft. Instead, Pocketpair says it’s focus right now is on staying small – the studio currently employs around 55 developers – and exploring new platforms. For the time being, Palworld is only available on Xbox consoles and PC.
“We are and will remain a small studio,” said Mizobe. “I want to make multiple small games. Big-budget, AAA games are not for us.” Mizobe also revealed that Palworld cost $6.7 million to make, which is much less than the ballooning budgets of AAA games these days. For comparison, The Last of Us Part II is believed to have cost around $200 million to develop, though that factors in hundreds of employees and much more resources available to them.
PS5 and Nintendo Switch would be the obvious platforms for Palworld to branch out to, which will expand the game’s reach significantly. We’ll just have to wait for Pocketpair to make an official announcement regarding other platforms in the near future as Palworld has no exclusivity obligations (that we know of) to Xbox.
Palworld launched earlier this year and became an instant hit on Steam and Xbox, gathering 25 million players in its first month of launch. The game is still in early access, though a full release is planned at a later stage. If you still haven’t played Palworld and are curious about jumping in, make sure you read our impressions first.
Source: Bloomberg
