"Palworld" might have blown gamers away when it dropped in January 2024 — so why did it take so long for Nintendo to notice? And what does its latest lawsuit have to do with the Switch's predecessor? Get ready for a real juicy story, kiddies.
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00:00PowerWorld might have blown gamers away when it dropped in January 2024.
00:05So why did it take so long for Nintendo to notice, and what does its latest lawsuit have
00:09to do with the Switch's predecessor?
00:12Get ready for a real juicy story, kiddies.
00:15Oh my god, it's so juicy!
00:18It's been a wild week for Nintendo.
00:20Over less than 24 hours, the company faced major Switch 2 leaks and began the process
00:25of suing PowerWorld developer Pocket Pair for patent infringement.
00:29In fact, the close timing has made fans think that the sudden whirlwind of activity is more
00:34than simple coincidence.
00:35Early on September 18th, alleged images and hardware specs for the Nintendo Switch 2 suddenly
00:40popped up on Reddit and X.
00:42You can't always rely on leaks, but these look to be fairly legitimate, though we can't
00:46show you pics here because, well, you know.
00:49Capybara!
00:50Capybara!
00:51Gamers naturally started sharing the news everywhere online and preparing for Nintendo
00:56to make a formal announcement.
00:58Later in the day, however, Nintendo dropped a bombshell when it filed its PowerWorld lawsuit
01:03alongside the Pokémon company.
01:05In a public statement, Pocket Pair responded to the lawsuit by saying,
01:08"...it is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters
01:12unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit.
01:15However, we will do our utmost for our fans and to ensure that indie game developers are
01:20not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas."
01:24Fans know that PowerWorld is more than a Pokémon clone, but hardly anyone is truly surprised
01:28that Nintendo is suing the devs.
01:30However, the timing came as a surprise to some.
01:33After all, PowerWorld has been out for months, and Nintendo has not indicated any desire
01:37to sue the developers.
01:38Even people without tinfoil hats have started to think there might be a connection between
01:42this week's biggest pieces of Nintendo news.
01:44"...so I decided, aw, s*** buddy, I gotta dig a little deeper."
01:48We've all known that Switch 2 would be coming out sooner or later.
01:51The original Switch came out all the way back in 2017, and its golden years have actually
01:56featured some of its best games, like The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, and
02:00Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
02:02Still, the Switch is getting pretty dated, and Nintendo recently confirmed plans to release
02:06a new console in the near future.
02:08Fans probably wouldn't have needed to wait much longer for an official look at the Switch's
02:12successor, but it seems like leakers have beaten Nintendo to the punch.
02:15The leak includes images and specs for the Switch 2, which really does look like a sleeker,
02:20more powerful version of the Switch.
02:22If these leaks are real, Nintendo is unsurprisingly doubling down on the success of the Switch's
02:27form factor.
02:28The way you play games on the new console will be very much the way you played them
02:31on the Switch, but there appear to be some much-needed design updates.
02:35The new console will reportedly sport a significantly larger OLED screen, 12 gigabytes of RAM, and
02:41256 gigabytes of storage, plus a much newer CPU-GPU unit.
02:47Nintendo hasn't confirmed that the leaks are accurate, but sources close to Video Games
02:50Chronicle say, quote, the Reddit images match what the company has told partners to expect
02:55from its design.
02:56It seems like we really could be looking at a mock-up of the Switch 2.
03:00The existence of the Switch 2 isn't exactly surprising anyone.
03:08After all, it may have been in developers' hands as early as 2023.
03:11But this leak is no doubt frustrating for Nintendo.
03:14The company undoubtedly had a big rollout planned, but now it may need to pivot.
03:18Some fans think that's exactly what the company is doing with this Palworld lawsuit.
03:23Some find the timing of the lawsuit a little suspicious, and they're under the impression
03:26that Nintendo is really just trying to bury news about the Switch 2 leaks.
03:31Others think Nintendo is taking advantage of the extra attention from the leaks to really
03:34drive its point home with the lawsuit.
03:37Then again, maybe Nintendo is just making this move to make up for the fact that these
03:41leaks made the company look a little disorganized, especially after everyone's been waiting so
03:46long for the Switch 2 announcement.
03:48Other less conspiratorially-minded folk think that Nintendo is just venting a little of
03:52its frustration on Pocketbear.
03:54Regardless of the true reasoning behind the lawsuit, it could have a serious effect on
03:58a smaller company like Pocketbear.
04:00People will probably forget about these leaks after the Switch 2 is officially announced,
04:04but small devs aren't going to forget how ferociously Nintendo protects its patent rights
04:08anytime soon.