Super Smash Bros. and Kirby Creator Says Studios That Don’t Use AI Will Fall Behind

Kirby and Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai says game developers risk falling behind if they ignore generative AI, even though he does not currently use it in his own work.

Sakurai said he does not use generative AI to find ideas or solve creative problems. He explained that game development requires more than an interesting concept: deadlines, team capabilities, budgets, and many other factors are difficult to fully describe in an AI prompt.

He believes the technology may eventually become sophisticated enough to help with brainstorming, but it has not yet reached that level.

Sakurai is also skeptical of using AI to create graphics. He believes the technology has yet to earn enough trust from game creators and should not become a tool for exploitation. He added that creating graphics independently is often faster than trying to get the desired result with AI under current conditions.

Even so, Sakurai cautioned against treating a complete rejection of the technology as the only correct position. He believes the game industry is in a difficult position and that developing modern projects requires vastly more resources than it once did.

As an example, he said Kirby Air Riders required roughly ten times as much work to produce as the original Kirby Air Ride. Even games that sell millions of copies do not always allow their developers to turn a profit, he added.

Sakurai believes studios that refuse to use generative AI because they distrust it risk gradually falling behind competitors. He thinks developers who experiment with AI without hesitation and use it effectively could potentially release far more games.