Konami sues Cygames for Pawapuro patent infringement
Uma Musume Pretty Derby is a Japan-only PC and mobile game by Cygames in which you train and compete with anime girl racehorses (no relation to Doki Doki Pretty League which falls under our baseball game jurisdiction).
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu Success Special is a free-to-play version of Konami’s Pawapuro baseball game series, focusing on their bread-and-butter Success story modes.
It’s just come out this week that Konami has sued Cygames for patent infringement, based on certain mechanics included in Uma Musume Pretty Derby. We don’t know for sure what the lawsuit is about specifically, but speculation is it’s the gacha-like mechanic in Success Special in which the player chooses a roster of certain characters with certain rarities in order to generate events for the story mode playthrough (Japanese patent listing here).
According to a statement from Cygames (in Japanese), this lawsuit goes all the way back to 2019, before the actual release of Uma Musume Pretty Derby.
To summarize the online response: Westerners tend to say “This is nonsense, Konami is such a rotten and litigious company.” Japanese Twitter user reaction has been more along the lines of “Well, yeah, it is a copycat game. That’s a shame, I hope they can work it out.”
Not so long ago, we talked about another rumored case of Konami making life difficult for other game companies, when the NPB had to be removed from Out of the Park Baseball. Be forewarned, game companies out there.
MLB The Show 23 adds kaijus for May
I’ve wanted MLB The Show to lighten up a little for years, so I’m excited to see the addition of more goofy Stadium Creator mode content in the game’s May update. A selection of royalty-free monsters and big monster movie content has arrived, along with some Diamond Dynasty cards themed around the kaiju update. It’s a small thing, but I’m a fan.
YouTube Viewing Guide
- It’s outside our topic of baseball video games, but I really recommend PsychOdyssey, the big huge documentary about the making of Psychonauts 2. Great look at the inside of a game studio, showing with a lot of honesty and awkwardness the process you have to go through to get dozens of people to work together on a single creative project.
And Asif Siddiky, one of the documentarians (who later becomes a level designer on the game) even wears a Moero!! Pro Yakyuu shirt?

- Super Mega Baseball 4‘s official YouTube channel showed off some more features in their “Presentation” deep dive
- Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2013 (Vita) Gameplay
- Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball (Genesis) Gameplay
- Neopets Home Run Challenge (Browser) Gameplay
- DinoKids Baseball (Browser) Gameplay