I mean, it feels kinda obvious. If there’s any company in this space that would never need to use generative AI, it’s Nintendo. They already employ some of the most talented art teams in the industry, they’re not exactly struggling to produce art or assets.
If this was from a developer who maybe hasn’t been a gaming monolith for the last 30+ years, that’d be different. This is like if Bill Gates says he promises not to open his 401k early; like, okay cool, I don’t think that was ever in doubt in the last 30 years, Bill, but thanks for letting us know.
Activision, Ubisoft, and EA, all multibillion game dev company, said they’ll be using generative AI to make their game, so no, it’s not really obvious. It’s also mentioned in the article
Nintendo’s stance differs from that of other gaming giants. Earlier this year, Ubisoft introduced Project Neural Nexus NEO NPCs, which uses generative AI to simulate in-game conversations and interactions with NPCs.
Similarly, Square Enix President Takashi Kiryu views generative AI as a business opportunity to create new content using cutting-edge technologies. Electronic Arts (EA) has also embraced generative AI, with CEO Andrew Wilson predicting that over half of EA’s development processes will benefit from advancements in generative AI.
The investor probably heard it’s a trendy thing that can make better profit, so they asked nintendo about it in the briefing.
Activision, Ubisoft, and EA, all multibillion game dev company, said they’ll be using generative AI to make their game
Because these companies don’t care stealing assets and work of others. AI makes it very easy and it won’t be too obvious. Problem with AI is, its trained on data they probably have no rights to use for. But its hard to provide evidence, until its too late and obvious.
They don’t even care to make good games anymore.
Yes and no. The developers mostly still care making good games. Therefore some games are still good. Also we got a few good surprises in the last few years from these companies, so its not all lost.
Developers yes, the companies? No.
Also we got a few good surprises
I can only think of Jedi Fallen Order and that was 5 years ago, maybe Diablo IV but I didn’t play it.
We haven’t really seen high quality art that uses AI as part of the creative process yet, but this could be similar to the animation studios of the 90s who refused to use computers. They’re all out of business now.
The reality is, generative AI is a really powerful tool, so they will be at a disadvantage going forward if they don’t use it.
The situation is different from the 90s companies not wanting to use computers. Using AI today is a risk of violating copyright. The reason is totally different and is not comparable.
The copyright issue is tangential. You don’t have to train a model using unethically sourced artwork, just like you don’t have to build a structure using slave labor. Nintendo has the resources to legally protect themselves one way or another if they actually wanted to use generative AI.
God dammit Nintendo.
You’re somehow great AND the actual worst and I fucking hate you for it.
And I know why it happens, but still. FUCKING HELL.
I’m with the stance of Valve here. Don’t use AI, if you didn’t train the data yourself. Generative AI can be useful and safe, if you trained it yourself. Using AI itself is not the problem and even Nintendo can benefit from it.
Instead of generative AI for game assets, id much rather see something like a LLM in game that dynamically controls NPC behavior. That would be cool as hell.
Like an RPG where you can type what you want to say to an NPC instead of choosing a fixed dialogue tree.
Edit: ugh, I lost myself in this reply. It’s just geeking about the future what could be possible, mostly not worth reading if you value your time.
This is one of the most exciting developments to me, the actual AI of bots or NPCs. Not only for RPG games, I can also envision multiplayer games to be more fun playing offline with bots. Imagine they act like humans, with their hearings and trying to trick you out in Mario Kart, Street Fighter and Counter Strike. Obviously we are long way from this, but this is very exciting to me.
Also GTA where people act normal and do stuff humans would probably try too is exciting as well. In RPGs imagine you hear about a hero in a village who defends its town and you recruit him, finding out its just a normal NPC for other players, but got strong because it found a holy weapon you dropped near to him in the beginning of the game. Just totally wild idea I know, but what if the future of games (probably 50 years from now… sheesh) is extremely rich and dynamic? I have no idea how this vision could be accomplished without AI and always server connection to power servers…
Not gonna happen. Not really.
So far research suggests the guardrail and hallucination problems are unsolvable, and we are seeing diminishing returns from increasing the complexity of these systems.
Hence devs will never have the necessary control required to author an actual narrative. NPCs will end up talking about mechanics that don’t exist, or saying things that contradict an overrall narrative.
Even with actual people, if you just throw them in a room and have the improv a world into existence, it never ends up quite as good as a properly authored narrative.
And LLMs are nowhere near achieving the level of internal consistency required for something like the worlds of Elden Ring or Mass Effect.
Baldur’s Gate 3 contains truly staggering amounts of writing, multiple times that of classical literary works. The hallucination problem means that if all that were AI generated, small parts of it might pass inspection, but trying to immerse yourself in it as a fictional world would have you noticing immersion breaking continuity errors left and right.
BAS- oh wait it’s about IP, not as based as I thought, I wish they cared about their artists at least.
I think they do, even if they don’t say it publicly. They recognize that they have very talented artists and don’t need AI for anything really