Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto says AI could have ‘positive’ impact on gaming

Legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has offered his thoughts on generative AI, and he’s more positive about it than you might expect. 

Generative AI has been a hot button issue within the games industry over the past few years and while it can speed up aspects of development, the uneasy threat it poses to artists and designers is rightly a concern. 

Some companies have embraced it more than others, as we’ve seen with Epic Games and its pursuit of a AI-driven Marvel and Star Wars shooter. However, when it comes to developers like Nintendo, it’s unclear if they are using generative AI to help make games or not.

Nintendo’s legendary designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, has now offered his thoughts on the technology, explaining how it could have a positive impact on creativity in games. 

Speaking during a press conference after accepting Japan’s Order Of Culture award, Miyamoto compared generative AI’s rise to the introduction of word processors on computers. 

‘In the past, for instance,’ Miyamoto said (as translated by VGC), ‘designers were taught in school how to create beautiful lettering for posters; possessing that skill alone was enough to be called a ‘designer’. Alternatively, one could simply take a design that was trending abroad, give it a ‘Japanese-style’ twist, and be labelled a designer.

‘However, as computers and technology advanced, a designer’s true individual capabilities, such as their innate sense of layout, finally came to the fore. I believe generative AI represents a similar shift.’

Miyamoto explains there’s a distinction between ‘creating’ something and the ‘labour’ involved. However, he warns that the enjoyable side of the labour can be deceiving to game developers, who will mistake this satisfaction for building something of genuine quality. 

‘While the act of creation is inherently satisfying, there’s a danger: one might find satisfaction in the labour itself and mistakenly believe that a high-quality piece of work has been created,’ he added. ‘In that sense, the more AI replaces these tasks, the more it provides an opportunity to reflect on what’s really important, which I think is a positive thing.’

In conclusion, Miyamoto is optimistic that even if generative AI does become prevalent in development, it will always need a human’s guidance to create anything of merit. 

‘Looking back at past designs, there are some that were created merely by copying and pasting,’ he added. ‘Yet, such work rarely stands the test of time; it lacks the individual’s particular design intention.

‘Because the process relies on an individual’s intent, with the computer serving as an assistant for the labour, I believe that even as technology continues to evolve, and even if AI were to eventually handle everything, there will always be a role left for us to play.’

It’s a nuanced response and one that it isn’t dissimilar to the view of Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai, who primarily sees generative AI as a backwards-looking technology that can only create ‘reproductions’. 

Speaking in an interview with Japanese outlet Denfaminicogamer (via Google Translate), Sakurai said how the volume of games being made will only increase thanks to AI, but most of them will be ‘unprofitable titles’. 

‘When it comes to things created with AI… or things mass produced with poor quality, I think most of them will simply be reproductions of systems seen in various other games,’ Sakurai said. ‘I think there are already a lot of those now.’

Sakurai suggests AI could easily replicate simple puzzle games now and, eventually, it may be able to recreate complex titles like Fumito Ueda’s Ico or Shadow Of The Colossus. However, he emphasised that it can’t create Ueda’s future games. ‘That’s something only he can create,’ he added. ‘I think that’s where human creativity lies.

‘Basically, AI refers to things that have been created so far, but it can’t refer to things that haven’t been created before. I think this is true not only for AI, but for various kinds of creative works as well.

‘I wouldn’t go so far as to call them ‘pioneers’, but rather people who forge their own path… people who understand and can create their own unique flavour… will become increasingly important from now on. I think this is especially true in an era of mass production and low-quality goods.’

Nintendo has been careful in the past when addressing the issue. The company’s CEO, Shuntaro Furukawa, acknowledged the ‘problematic’ elements of generative AI in a statement from 2024, but didn’t rule out its use entirely. 

Recently, other Japanese developers like Capcom have said it uses generative AI to ‘improve development efficiency and productivity’, as well as to ‘streamline routine tasks’. However, it said it will ‘not implement assets generated by AI into our games’. 

That seems like the optimum outcome for the future, as generative AI’s use in some form seems unavoidable at this point, but it will be interesting to see if the technology remains an awkward taboo in the coming years. 

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