Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai says large-scale game development is “unsustainable”, thinks generative AI can help

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai has weighed in on the current state of large-scale game development and the possibility of improving the situation with generative AI.

ITmedia was able to speak with Sakurai about various topics during an interview, and towards the end of the discussion, he was asked about his thoughts concerning the future of the games market. The outlet mentioned how development is only increasing in scale while the indie market is also growing.

Sakurai ultimately feels that large-scale game development is currently “time-consuming and unsustainable”. One possible solution he mentioned is generative AI, which he believes can be used in different ways.

Sakurai said the following (via machine translation):

“To be honest, it’s impossible to tell what’s going to happen. I think we’ve reached a point where trying to make large-scale games like we do now is too time-consuming and unsustainable. I feel that we can’t continue like this, but at the moment the only effective solution I can think of is generative AI. I feel that we’ve reached a stage where we have to change our scheme, such as by using generative AI to increase work efficiency. I think we’ll enter an era where only companies that can adapt well to this change will survive.”

To give added context, Sakurai isn’t fully endorsing AI, nor is he saying it’s the only way forward or how it’s his games will be made. The main takeaway is that his thoughts on development becoming unsustainable relate to how the work needed to create games – which is only going up – exceeds the amount of hands available to do the work. In Japan, this is an issue in particular due to a decreasing talent pool, and bringing in talent from overseas is a challenge due to the language barrier.

We’ve previously heard Nintendo comment directly on AI. Last year, Shigeru Miyamoto seemed down on using it. Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser noted that how the company makes games will always incorporate a human touch.

Thanks to ITmedia and Resetera for today’s news.