Pocketpair partners with Sony for new Palworld company

Developer Pocketpair has partnered with Sony to form a new joint venture to expand and develop businesses based on its hit survival game Palworld.

Pocketpair, Sony Music Entertainment Japan, and its subsidiary Aniplex have established the joint venture Palworld Entertainment Inc., which will be led by Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe.

According to a statement, the joint venture will be responsible for “developing the reach of the intellectual property and for expanding commercial business endeavors.”

That includes global licensing and merchandising activities associated with Palworld, outside of the video game.

The setup is not too dissimilar from how Pokémon developer Game Freak established The Pokémon Company with Nintendo and Creatures to run the Pokémon brand.

Palworld Entertainment’s efforts will begin with the development of exclusive merchandise based on the game, which will debut at Bilibili World in Shanghai, China this week.

Notably, despite partnering with Sony, Palworld is yet to release for PlayStation consoles. In March, Mizobe said the company was in talks to bring Palworld to additional platforms.

Released in January via Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, Palworld attracted 25 million players in its first month, according to Pocketpair.

Pocketpair launched a major Palworld expansion last month. The Sakurajima update introduced a new island for players to explore, plus new Pals and subspecies.

It also added dedicated servers on Xbox, new buildings, a new level cap, a new raid, an oil rig stronghold, and a PvP arena mode.