A few days ago, alongside its quarterly financial report, Sony revealed that it has already embraced AI tools to empower the game development of its own first party studios. More information about this strategy is now available via the Corporate Strategy Earnings Presentation, delivered by Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki and PlayStation President and CEO Hideaki Nishino.
Sony's overarching principle is that human creativity must remain central. CEO Hiroki Totoki set the tone plainly: "AI is a powerful tool, but it is not a replacement for artists or creators. It is an amplifier of human imagination and a catalyst for new possibilities". PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino echoed this: "The vision, the design, and the emotional impact of our games will always come from the talent of our studios and performers. AI is meant to augment their capabilities, not to replace them".
Within PlayStation Studios, game developers are already automating repetitive workflows, improving software engineering productivity, and accelerating areas like quality assurance, 3D modeling, and animation through new AI-powered tools. Nishino then outlined several concrete internal tools already deployed:
- Mockingbird — "Our teams created a tool we call Mockingbird that quickly animates 3D facial models based on the performance capture. Importantly, we're not replacing human performers, but rather optimizing how we process the data from these live captures. With Mockingbird, animation work that would have taken hours can now be completed in a fraction of a second". Mockingbird has been already adopted at Naughty Dog, San Diego Studio, and was used in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.
- AI hair animation tool — "Our teams have accelerated this process by taking videos of real hairstyles and having an AI tool output a 3D model, with hundreds of strand models". Also used on Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.
- Gran Turismo Sophy — The previously announced deep reinforcement learning racing agent that "has added a level of competitive gameplay for even our most seasoned drivers" in Gran Turismo 7.
Nishino added that Sony's creatives have already created "amazing prototypes" where NPCs with their own personalities can create a living, dynamic world for the player to explore. That's certainly one of the most interesting venues of application in games, potentially enabling entirely new gameplay experiences that go far beyond the static NPCs we've come to expect from videogames.
The PlayStation executive also shared the belief that AI is lowering barriers to creation, accelerating development cycles, and enabling more creators to enter the gaming market. As a result, Sony expects to see a meaningful increase in the volume and diversity of content available to players.
On that note, Sony wants to use its own prized IPs to be the key differentiator, because even with more choices available, players will still "gravitate toward trusted franchises they know will deliver high-quality experiences".
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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