As announced in the recent State of Play, Palworld is now available on PlayStation 5. Surprisingly, this announcement came just after Nintendo's lawsuit over Pocketpair's use of the company's patents came to light.
Sony, which is also Japanese, had no problem releasing the game in all its territories... except one. You guessed it, but PlayStation users in Japan don't have access to Palworld.
Pocket Pair is present at the Tokyo Game Show right now, and in fact has a PS5 with Palworld installed on it for attendees to try out the console version, but when asked by Japanese media outlet Game Watch why Palworld wasn't available in Japan, the studio members present simply replied that it was due to "miscellaneous circumstances".
Clearly, Nintendo's notification came as a surprise to both Palworld's creators and Sony, who are now faced with a somewhat awkward decision. Not to add fuel to the fire of a legal process, it seems that blocking Palworld from Japanese PlayStation players is a solution that satisfies no one.