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The story
A thread on the Hardware/Industry (Geha) board picked up on remarks reportedly made by Shigeru Miyamoto that “being able to create assets with generative AI is a wonderful thing.” The discussion kicked off with a suggestion that Monolith Soft — which has handled much of the 3D asset production for Nintendo titles — could eventually see its work replaced by generative AI, and opinions quickly split over what Monolith Soft’s job actually entails. Posters pulled in quotes from official interviews and a shareholder-meeting Q&A about generative AI, with the debate ultimately turning on whether Miyamoto’s comment was about a hypothetical future or Nintendo’s current policy.
What people said
Isn't Monolith screwed?
The one who's screwed is you, putting on a one-man puppet show (arguing against a strawman you made up yourself).
AI isn't magic, you know.
Miyamoto's literally saying asset production work will get taken over by generative AI and won't be left for humans.
Xenoblade Chronicles X turned out the way it did, and Breath of the Wild turned out the way it did — if Nintendo hadn't absorbed any systems-level know-how from that, they'd deserve to be laughed at.
Huh? Not a single Monolith programmer worked on Breath of the Wild.
Also, Xenoblade Chronicles X was only made possible through technical support from Nintendo staff.
That's not my delusion, that's the official statement from Nintendo and Monolith.
Guess that was a delusion after all.
They were involved in the brainstorming stage too, and did level design together.
Iwamoto:
Since we needed to build out such a vast field, we increasingly started asking Monolith Soft's planners to help out starting from the level design and gameplay-idea stage as well.
Fujita:
Speaking of the animation work I was in charge of — on Skyward Sword, our job ended once the data was made, and it was Nintendo's side that built it into the game and polished the fun factor. But on Breath of the Wild, we started thinking together about how things would be built into the game, and we even got to help adjust the feel of the controls during play.
What Miyamoto was actually saying is that, just like lettering got replaced by machines, asset production will get replaced by generative AI and become more convenient.
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Deforming a rough mesh based on the content of placed objects
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Placing fine detail parts to match the terrain
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Re: #26
Makes me sad seeing tech that doesn't even come close to Nintendo's level.
Yeah, they use them to do asset production, which is just "grunt work." Since Miyamoto says that'll get replaced by generative AI, I'm worried about Monolith's future.
Won Best Technology at the GDC Awards.
Iwamoto:
We want Monolith Soft to take on more and more of the core work, as a strong partner building Zelda from the ground up.
Going forward they'll need to find a role beyond being asset-production grunt labor (土方, lit. "construction worker," slang for menial grind work) like before, or generative AI will wipe them out.
Hope Monolith pulls through.
Miyamoto was talking about the industry as a whole — it's not like Nintendo itself is going to use generative AI.
Of course they're going to use it.
Do you not get the point of Miyamoto bringing up the lettering example?
That's asset production too.
Q&A session:
"Given developments like the EU's AI legislation, how do you view and plan to address the risk of using generative AI trained without rights holders' permission, or the risk of generative AI infringing on intellectual property rights?"
Nintendo noted that "in the game industry, AI-like technology has long been used for things like enemy character movement, so game development and AI technology have always had some overlap." While generative AI can enable more creative work, there are also issues around intellectual property and power consumption, "so for now, our policy is not to use it."
LOL that's about the present.
Miyamoto's talking about the future.
Huh?
A character's 3D CG model is literally one type of asset.
Breath of the Wild's credits roll & the official interview.
Stopped reading right at "sorry, can't provide that."
I do admit they're competent as an asset-production team.
I remember someone similar posting before too — how many years has this guy been obsessing over this?
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Monolith Soft is an in-house Nintendo studio best known as the developer of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, while also supporting Nintendo on Zelda titles like Breath of the Wild, primarily through background and asset production. According to the official interviews quoted in the thread, the studio’s involvement expanded with each project to include level design and brainstorming gameplay ideas — which doesn’t quite match the view that it’s “just a subcontractor doing asset production.” The debate split over whether to read Miyamoto’s comment as being about a future in which asset production as a whole gets replaced by generative AI, or as a statement about the present, in which Nintendo currently doesn’t use generative AI due to intellectual property and power-consumption concerns — and the two sides talked past each other without the discussion ever really connecting. It’s also easy to overlook that the automated placement and generation tools described in the CG World interview show Monolith is already working on its own efficiency improvements — a different context altogether from simply “leaving it to generative AI.”
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “Miyamoto Shigeru: “Being able to create assets with generative AI is a wonderful thing” 👈 Doesn’t this spell trouble for Monolith?“
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