You could argue against anything involving throwing a net to capture something, like monster hunter for the small fauna. Ark has “cryo pods” that function basically like pokeballs.

in minecraft you throw eggs to hatch chickens

ghostbusters, throwing trap to catch ghosts

Bulma keeps machinery in tiny capsules

They should go after Rockstar for the mechanic of throwing a rope at an animal to catch it, if this is the criteria. Ridiculous.

The VG made by pocketpair before the patent was issued for one.

Summoning a dedra in skyrim?

Ratchet and Clank’s glove of doom fits the bill

Does Ghostbusters count?

Helldivers has this, I believe. if a teammate dies then you have to throw an object to summon down a drop pod at a specific location

Uh, nets IRL for starters, but there are shitloads of games with capture and summon mechanics ranging from Ghost Busters to ARK to Ratchet and Clank to fucking Skyrim.

Edit: Downvote all you want, but don’t ask the question if you don’t want the answer.

Interesting, every example people have given you in response is pretty weak. (I’m not saying I agree with Nintendo have any exclusive claim here.)