Microsoft should lock it down in my opinion. Sony locked down Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail which were great decisions. Microsoft needs to do the same with Palworld.
I agree, at some strategic level MS could do that. However in spite of this game's viral popularity, I don't think that popularity's going to last (not at the current level) for starters and secondly it alone wouldn't do much for bolstering Xbox hardware sales numbers, although it may help a bit.
MS seem less interested in Xbox hardware sales and more interested in growing revenue & profits. Locking down a publishing & distribution contract with the developer studio (including helping with things like a mobile port) would probably be way more lucrative for them. And if I were Sony, I'd already be thinking along these lines and going for such an arrangement ahead of Microsoft.
Won't happen.
Palworld is finding its succes on PC, not Xbox. Genshin Impact found its success on PS4, not PC.
PS is the biggest console platform, and Palworld will find significantly more success on PlayStation than Xbox.
That's true for B2P sales but if MS were to assume the role of publisher for the game or enter some partnership with the developer that included things like funding and publishing rights across all platforms, then not having Xbox exclusivity becomes a moot point.
MS's goal in that case would be to get money off B2P sales of the game from all platforms it's own, and that's money Sony would be missing out on. Hopefully Shuhei is looking into talking the Palworld devs into some type of partnership & distribution agreement with SIE alongside getting the game on PlayStation platforms.
It will be a long time probably. Sony doesn't usually allow early access games on their consoles. Pocketpair said their are no plans for a playstation version as of right now. Palworld will be in early access for at least year. Probably longer.
And this is where stuff like
@KnittedKnight 's statements of Sony needing to compete better with PC/Steam come into play. Why don't they have an Early Access type program for PSN? Steam has it; Sony could have something similar and potentially better.
This is the problem when people limit PlayStation's competition to just Xbox, as if Nintendo and Steam don't exist. Especially the latter, pretending there isn't a lot of audience crossover when there clearly is. Where do you think the audience for Pokemon-style games are at? PC? No, it's consoles. So why is this game selling 4+ million on PC (specifically Steam) in a matter of days?
Even Jim Ryan's said PC is a competing platform with PlayStation; back in the day games like Palworld would've been on a PlayStation platform from Day 1 and that associated mindshare would be there with PlayStation. Instead it's with PC/Steam and to a lesser extent Xbox & Game Pass. Competing more efficiently with PC & Steam for gaming shouldn't involve porting your 1P traditional games wholesale to platforms like Steam with shrinking windows of timing. It should be in looking at what features platforms like Steam provide that attract so many users, adopting & bettering them for PlayStation consoles, and retaining as much of your own 1P library of exclusives (and 3P exclusives) as possible. Genuine exclusives btw, not "console-exclusive" or "console-exclusive for 1 year" types of exclusives; if you have to have those, they should be minimum.
