• Nintendo says that it won’t be using generative AI for game development, at least for first-party titles.
• President Shuntaro Furukawa told investors that generative AI has issues with intellectual property rights, something the Japanese company takes extremely seriously.
• Despite this, other major game developers are already investing considerably in the technology.

Bucking the current trend in technology, Japanese videogame powerhouse Nintendo has said it won’t be using generative AI anywhere near its famous game franchises.

While other huge game developers are turning to generative AI to make game development easier or NPCs smarter, Nintendo has decided to stay away from the technology not because of ethical considerations around employment or creative bankruptcy but because they hate when people steal their stuff.

According to Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa, who spoke to investors in a Q&A (PDF in Japanese, h/t TweakTown), “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.”

Adding, “We have decades of know-how in creating optimal gaming experiences for our customers, and while we remain flexible in responding to technological developments, we hope to continue to deliver value that is unique to us and cannot be achieved through technology alone.”

Furukawa recognised that AI has been used in gaming for years, saying “AI-like technology has long been used to control enemy character movements” which represents the prominent understanding of AI in gaming from the before times, before generative AI.

This isn’t actually AI at all, but rather a set of algorithms programmed by the developers: If player attacks with a sword, NPC must block. If player uses fireball, NPC must dodge and then counterattack, but the dodge must be a 12 percent delayed so player has a higher chance to hit, etc.

Generative AI in game development is rather what Ubisoft is doing, spinning up an app that can generate random barks for NPCs so that writers on the dev team don’t have to sleep at their desks.

Nintendo famously loathes any attempts to infringe on its intellectual property, and will decisively act on perceived affronts. A mod for Palworld, a game that already skirts on definitions of copyright, that changes the Pals to look like Pokémon was removed from the entire internet hours after it was revealed by its creators.

The Mariomakers then said they would investigate the developers of Palworld to ensure nothing shady was happening ie. that the Pals didn’t look too much like Pokémon lest Nintendo get litigious. It’s refreshing that Nintendo is holding itself to the same standard, and doesn’t appreciate the tendency of generative AI to regurgitate already available content – something OpenAI says is inevitable.

And while other developers may share the same sentiment, they will be in the minority, as CNET describes.

Microsoft is already using generative AI to help developers create scripting, dialogue, and even entire questchains and NVIDIA has expanded its own forays into the technology, showing off NPCs that can talk to the player dynamically, built on generative AI.

It’s definitely going to be interesting for the future of game development, but until those who are investing in generative AI can answer the intellectual property question, as well as the processing question – you won’t be able to run a game with dynamically talking NPCs without an internet connection at the least – the technology will likely remain in the guise of efficiency and speeding development.

[Image – Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash]