Breaking from other big names in the gaming industry, Nintendo is standing by game development without the use of generative AI shortcuts, per Nintendo President Shuntaro Furakawa [h/t GameWorldObserver]. This is in stark contrast to the 1,000+ generative AI games already available on Steam, and comments from other big names in the gaming industry.
"Generative AI, which has been a hot topic in recent years, can be more creative, but we also recognize that it has issues with intellectual property rights. Our company has decades of know-how in creating optimal gaming experiences for our consumers," said Furakawa. "While we are flexible in responding to technological developments, we hope to continue to deliver value that is unique to us and cannot be created through technology alone."
As noted by GameWorldObserver (GWO) in its coverage of this statement, this is quite a bit different from the viewpoints of executives at major AAA studios like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Take-Two Interactive.
We've previously covered Ubisoft's Neo NPC project, which is the product of a partnership between Ubisoft, Nvidia, and Inworld AI, as well as ominous EA patents. Obviously, Ubisoft is actively embracing generative AI, though Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's statements quoted by GWO lean toward a more balanced approach, stating "Hits are created by Genius, and data sets plus compute, plus large language models do not equal Genius. Genius is in the domain of human beings, and I believe we'll stay that way."
Meanwhile, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson is pretty much on the opposite side of the coin from Nintendo entirely, declaring that "More than 50% of our development processes will be positively impacted by the advances in generative AI."
Thus far, Nintendo's statement against generative AI adoption has been pretty uncontroversial — in fact, it's probably one of their most popular corporate decisions, just behind fan-favorite game series revivals and dropping executive pay in slim periods so as not to fire employees.
While Nintendo will unhesitantly go on the warpath against fan mods and claims no legitimate use for game preservation/enhancement via emulation, the firm maintains a pretty good reputation among its core fans and anyone who actually cares about laborers in the gaming industry. This line marks a contrast with Microsoft's Xbox and most of the other major publishers.
While mainstream and especially American AAA studios seem content to mass-hire and mass-fire employees to finish games quickly, please shareholders, and raise executive pay, Nintendo truly does things differently. As the gaming industry pivots more to pleasing shareholders and its executives rather than actually taking care of its employees for long-term health, it's a relief that some companies still understand the actual value of the humans they hire and the art they create beyond numbers on a spreadsheet.
I'm not buying another Nintendo console until at least Switch 2, though. Sorry, Big N.
