While Palworld developer Pocketpair has been gearing up to start publishing games, the company’s communications director and publishing manager, Jon Buckley, spoke about how the CEO would never allow the company to be bought out. Speaking to IGN, Buckley answered a question about what would happen of Pocketpair were offered an acquisition deal.
“Our CEO [Takuro Mizobe] would never allow it,” responded Buckley. “He’d never allow it. He’d never allow it. He would never, never allow it. He likes doing his own thing and he likes being his own boss. He doesn’t like people telling him what to do.”
Buckley believes that if Pocketpair were to be acquired, it would likely only happen once Mizobe were to start thinking about retirement. However, he doesn’t believe that it would be happening anytime soon. Rather, because Pocketpair is involved in quite a few things, including Palworld as a major IP, the company will be quite busy for a while.
“So I would be shocked,” continued Buckley. “Maybe when [Mizobe]’s old, and he might just sell it off for money. And that would be sad, but in my lifetime, I probably won’t see it. No, it’ll be interesting to see where the two paths go. We, Pocketpair, are obviously only involved in where the game path is going. Palworld as an IP, we are involved, but it’s very much in the hands of Aniplex and Sony Music who are steering that ship right now. We are just offering our advice and thoughts as they take that.”
Interestingly, Buckley’s statement run counter to ones made by Mizobe back in March 2024, when he said in an interview that while the studio was happy with its independence, it would be “open to consider offers for partnership or acquisition”.
When it comes to the success of Palworld and it becoming a major IP, Pocketpair announced a joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) and Aniplex back in July 2024. Dubbed Palworld Entertainment Inc., the venture would focus on further developing the IP, including potentially global merchandising and licensing.
Buckley has also previously spoken about bringing Palworld on to the Nintendo Switch 2. In an interview, he revealed that the studio would start considering it once more details about the console were revealed, and if it turned out to be powerful enough to run the game.
“We haven’t seen those specs yet,” said Buckley back in March. “Like everyone else, we’re waiting. I’m walking around GDC hoping someone will tell me them, but everyone I’ve spoken to says they haven’t even seen them.”
“If [Switch 2]’s beefy enough, it’s 100% worth considering,” he said about the technical hurdles the studio might face. “We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with. Still work to do, but we’re really happy with how it turned out. So we would like to get it on more handhelds if possible.”
Alongside working on Palworld, Pocketpair is also working with Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios on its next title. The game doesn’t yet have a name, but has been described as “short and weird”. The studio and publisher have also confirmed that it will be a horror game.
