Sakurai rejects generative AI for now but warns studios against standing still

Masahiro Sakurai said he was not using generative AI in any part of his current game work, including for brainstorming and graphics, but warned that developers who reject the technology altogether risk falling behind. The Super Smash Bros. creator made the comments at Famitsu’s 40th Anniversary Festival in Akihabara, Tokyo, on Nov. 7.

Accounts published by Insider Gaming and GameTrader.SG said Sakurai regarded the question less as a simple choice for or against AI than as a difficult decision about its appropriate use. He said that doing nothing about the technology could also be a mistake, while declining to make a definitive statement on whether or where he might adopt it.

For now, Sakurai said generative AI could not adequately handle game-production problem solving. Prompts cannot incorporate every relevant constraint, he said, including deadlines, a team’s capabilities and costs, and missing those factors can produce a sloppy result. He said the technology had not reached a level suitable for brainstorming.

He also said AI-generated graphics had not earned developers’ trust and should not become a means of exploiting others. In the current state of the tools, he said, developers could create graphics faster themselves than by relying on AI. No generative AI was used on Kirby Air Riders.

The caution came alongside a blunt account of the pressures facing game makers. Sakurai described modern development as “way too difficult” and estimated that Kirby Air Riders required about 10 times the workload of Kirby Air Ride. Some games sell millions of copies while their developers continue to operate at a loss, he said.

Sakurai warned that studios using AI without hesitation may be able to make many more games than those relying solely on conventional methods. Developers who remain fixed on avoiding generative AI because they distrust it could therefore fall progressively further behind, he said.

As reported on Nov. 6, Hideo Kojima similarly warned that AI-led efficiency could hollow out game-making’s creative craft, though Sakurai’s remarks focused more directly on the production burden and competitive risks facing studios.

Sakurai had previously predicted that AI would help increase the number of game releases, while arguing that a flood of mass-produced, low-quality titles could prove unprofitable and make distinct creative voices more important. Eurogamer reported that he pointed to Steam’s expansion from 275 games published in 2010 to more than 19,000 releases in the year of its report.

The festival appearance marked the Nov. 6 Japanese release of “Masahiro Sakurai’s Thoughts on Games: Final,” a collection of his Famitsu columns.