Palworld has been one of the most popular games around the world since its launch. PocketPair did not expect this level of success even after the full release of the game. Palworld was well received by players and has gathered a massive player base. The game had two million concurrent players on Steam, and the CEO realized no other PocketPair would be able to reach the popularity of Palworld.
In recent interviews, the CEO said Palworld exceeded their expectations and was not able to handle this player base since the studio is quite small. Because of such massive success, the Studio is not able to keep up with the demands. The game itself breaks multiple records in an abbreviated period. Recently, many rumours about the PocketPair acquisition or Palworld’s acquisition have been about Microsoft offering a deal to the company because of how well it received on the Xbox Game Pass.
Is Microsoft trying to buy PocketPair for Palworld?
Microsoft has already confirmed they are supporting PocketPair by helping them scale since Microsoft has already removed the Xbox Game Pass or Xbox Console game. Microsoft supports Palworld to make it more stable and allow for frequent updates for Xbox and the PC version as well.
At this moment, it is ridiculously hard to know the exact value, and Microsoft attempts to buy the PocketPair outright while Studio is not able to digest the success. The studio is rapidly growing, working, and outsourcing studios to work on games; however, if we calculate the 12 million players who have purchased the game at $26, then it’s about $312 million in revenue. However, the game does not have any post-release monetization.
Microsoft Said, “We’re providing support to enable dedicated servers, offering engineering resources to help with GPU and memory optimisation, speeding up the process to make Palworld updates available for players, and collaborating with the team to optimise the title for our platform.”
Microsoft is in an advantageous position with the PocketPair Studio, supporting the studio to expand and being more stable with its resources and infrastructure. The Xbox Division has indeed benefited from Palworld since Day 1, as it became the biggest third-party game launch in its history.
What PocketPair says about the Microsoft acquisition rumours in the Bloomberg interview
The developer of Pocketpair said they could not manage the massive profit the game has generated; it’s too big for a studio with its size. PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe said that no active acquisition talks had even taken place with the company during the Bloomberg interview. Studio is focusing on staying small with fifty-five employees and is committed to exploring new platforms like PlayStation and Nintendo. Before going to the path of releasing, Palworld is addressing the existing bugs before the stable release.
At this moment, the company wants to remain independent and continue to work in small teams. The game has been available to the public for months now, and they have already released Palworld Roadmap 2024, which will bring features like PVP, Server transfer, better Pal’s AI, New Islands, and more. Although it is not just Microsoft, it sounds like PocketPair would prefer any kind of offer if it were right. During the interview, it is not mentioned that the game has violated any copyright with the design of its Pal character.
Not even Palworld predicted anywhere close to the success Palworld has achieved. In the PocketPair community, the manager says, “In May of 2023, I was convinced that Palworld could break the 50,000-player mark,” Bucky said. “Anything above that seemed unattainable, though, and I certainly never expected it to reach the millions.”
As simple as that, there are not any ongoing plans to change anything, and despite the influx of capital, the CEO doesn’t want to spend reckless money hiring more staff or offices. In addition, there are no plans to make PocketPair a publicly traded company.
Developers said Palworld only really begins here. They have generated good revenue by investing in the game. The company recently invited players to join the beta test to test the upcoming update, which is said to be part of the Palworld Roadmap 2024. The upcoming update is said to bring players who have shifted to another game; Palworld lost a major chunk of its player base, and with the new update, players may come again to play to experience the game since it will be more stable and have more to explore. Some of the achievements that have already been published on Steam will be unlocked with the next update.
The cost of developing Palworld is about $6.7 million, which is a fraction of the massive AAA budget of games like The Last of the US Part II and Horizon Forbidden West. In addition to this, PocketPair also confirmed they are looking to expand their game to a larger player base, which includes the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation. The CEO is open to the idea of partnering with other studios or being purchased outright, but not at this time.