Sony fully embraces AI, including GenAI

[iamthemilkman]

Alongside the earnings report, Sony today is revealing a wide-ranging generative AI strategy built around a single guiding principle: AI augments human creativity; it doesn't replace it. Speaking at the FY25 earnings presentation, Sony Group CEO Hiroki Totoki said:

Human creativity must remain at the center. AI is a powerful tool, but is not a replacement for artists or creators. It is an amplifier of human imagination and catalyst for new possibilities.

Sony Pictures has already invested more than $50 million in AI capabilities covering production planning, content protection, enterprise productivity, data analytics, innovation, and 3D conversion. Sony Music is pursuing an industry-wide standard for labeling AI-generated content, aiming to provide transparency to consumers while protecting IP rights with licensing partners. Today, Sony also announced a collaborative initiative with Bandai Namco to explore generative AI in video production. The two companies have already identified "massive gains in speed and productivity per person" and have surfaced key weaknesses: current models lack consistency and controllability, which creators require. Sony has developed workarounds using fine-tuned models built on proprietary data to generate reliable, stylistically accurate output at commercially viable costs.

But what's more interesting to us is that PlayStation CEO Nishino Hideaki detailed how AI is specifically reshaping Sony's first-party studios. The push is broad and already deployed in released titles, though the executive did not clarify which ones.

• Mockingbird is an internal tool that generates facial animations from performance capture data in a fraction of the traditional time. It was already adopted at Naughty Dog and San Diego Studio, including on shipped games. San Diego Studio just released MLB The Show 26.
• An AI hair animation tool converts video footage of real hairstyles into strand-level 3D models, eliminating what was previously one of the most labor-intensive processes in character art.
• Wider studio automation across first-party PlayStation developers now covers repetitive workflows, software engineering productivity, QA acceleration, and 3D modeling.

Hideaki added:

Our goal is always to be the best place to play and the best place to publish. We see AI as a powerful tool to help us in this mission.

Sony might be the biggest game publisher to openly adopt AI tools in game development.

Link

Unsurprising given that Sony's cinematic third-person games that they seem to be obsessed with cost hundreds of millions to develop.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

I mean... I kinda get it from a business standpoint: a friend of mine is a professional animator and has walked me through the process of getting her stuff in games and movies through several caffeine-powered chats.

She defined it as "inefficient torture" in the sense that it's slow and very hard to pull off — I don't blame Sony for trying to smooth and accelerate the process however they can, kinda like when traditional animation studios switched from hand-drawn, cell-based stuff to digital just to prevent the process from killing everyone involved, even at the cost of thousands of jobs (like the guys who would slowly, mechanically match characters to backgrounds one by one, up to 30000 times per episode (!)).

BUT - and this is an important 'but' - no-one is forcing Sony to go guns crazy and pulling the trigger on games that both cost billions to develop and ARE money-makers. They can't just replace a good, proven team with a machine, especially one that's sorely lacking consistency as its biggest drawback and think they are being clever by doing so.

AI can help them with a lot of tasks, but it shouldn't be anywhere near the visual side of things.

 

[Zeo]

As long the AI is used to help make stuff easier and doesnt affect the jobs of the ones that worked their asses learning how to do them is ok

Lets just hope they dont just decide to make the AI resources more and more important to the product instead of the actual human working on it

 

[Vexicrypt]

I always thought that yassified Kratos is the future of gaming!

Jokes aside though, I'm growing more and more thankful for Jim Ryan ruining Sony for me and making me stop buying their products so early. So now I can just sit back and watch the show without engaging in it. Especially with current prices, no thanks.

 

[ThatOneLum]

Sounds a lot like they just said "Never buy another Sony game" to me
(I mean, I don't actually think I did before, but still)

 

[Tenshishi]

As a videographer, I acknowledge that AI is a helpful tool - it's saved me a lot of time on creating and animating subtitles, for instance. But you've always got to check its quality, because AI has absolutely zero nuance. So from that point, I do get why they want to streamline their processes a little bit - I definitely appreciate just being able to edit a video in Premiere instead of hand-painting a special effect on a film cell.

That being said, if their primary motivator is to keep making these big AAA games... Well, that crushes my understanding a bit. They could just make several AA, A, or even B games instead if they wanted to save money, and then they'd... You know, have more games? Sometimes it's better to have a big pile of diverse games so there's more chance for people to love what you put out, as opposed to only making a few experiences and losing the whole audience that doesn't like those. As someone who doesn't like both The Last of Us or open world games in general, the single game Sony's made for me to like thus far this gen has been Astro Bot.

 

[Ikagura]

Remember when Sony actually cared and tried to be technologically advanced without relying on cheap alternatives like AI?

AI can help them with a lot of tasks, but it shouldn't be anywhere near the visual side of things.

I'd argue that you shouldn't even trust AI even for the simplest of task.

As long the AI is used to help make stuff easier and doesnt affect the jobs of the ones that worked their asses learning how to do them is ok.

If only that would actually reduce the cost of their production and games...

I always thought that yassified Kratos is the future of gaming!

What does that even mean?

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Sounds a lot like they just said "Never buy another Sony game" to me
(I mean, I don't actually think I did before, but still)

They still haven’t made a new Parappa, Gravity Rush, or Jumping Flash to make up for the disappearances of the companies they acquired so they’re dead to me

 

[-------]

It's ok because I know I won't use it and Sony can't force you to use it. Because otherwise nobody will buy her things anymore. That's exactly what I'm currently experiencing with Microsoft.They annoy me that I use the AI copilot, but I don't.

 

[Vardalis]

Not shocked or surprised. I haven't bought anything Sony related directly from them since the PS3 though so it makes little difference to me.

 

[JellyjamLu]

Don't even Sony!

 

[Frickinfrik]

I feel betrayed

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

I'd argue that you shouldn't even trust AI even for the simplest of task.

True. A San Francisco celebrity cat was hit by a self driving truck that had no driver. This was after someone saw the cat decide to rest under a parked car as cats often do but couldn’t get there in time as the self driving car suddenly shot to life.

This is simply the most extreme way of explaining why you should not put all your trust into AI. A normal person would’ve seen the witness poking around and wonder why. AI can’t as it lacks that curiosity. It’s bound to make mistakes.

Rest in peace KitKat

 

[ShadowsofCreationAga]

True. A San Francisco celebrity cat was hit by a self driving truck that had no driver. This was after someone saw the cat decide to rest under a parked car as cats often do but couldn’t get there in time as the self driving car suddenly shot to life.

This is simply the most extreme way of explaining why you should not put all your trust into AI. A normal person would’ve seen the witness poking around and wonder why. AI can’t as it lacks that curiosity. It’s bound to make mistakes.

Rest in peace KitKat

This is incredibly sad, but people also make mistakes... constantly. I can guarantee more animals have been hit and killed by humans than robots, even if we limit it solely to just the years where self driving cars have been a thing.

 

[Ikagura]

This is incredibly sad, but people also make mistakes... constantly. I can guarantee more animals have been hit and killed by humans than robots, even if we limit it solely to just the years where self driving cars have been a thing.

While people also make mistakes they tend to learn from them.

Also there are less car accidents from AI controlled vehicles because there are proportionally less.

I wouldn't give my entire trust towards those vehicles either.

 

[shaggi]

I hope Sony won't go too far.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

This is incredibly sad, but people also make mistakes... constantly. I can guarantee more animals have been hit and killed by humans than robots, even if we limit it solely to just the years where self driving cars have been a thing.

This is also true, but my point is that AI is a tool that still needs to iron out the kinks, its not worth putting all stock into something that's still so malleable that chatbots have been able to get corrupted by users trying to break them. We're not in a good enough position to use it for all daily tasks yet.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

This is incredibly sad, but people also make mistakes... constantly. I can guarantee more animals have been hit and killed by humans than robots, even if we limit it solely to just the years where self driving cars have been a thing.

True.

My gripe with self-driving cars is that they take away jobs from drivers when there's really no need or reason to.

Some things could benefit immensely from being automated, but when we are just being assholes to workers who had proved reliable doing something (or some flavor of that said "something") for hundreds of years, I think it's time to fuck off and stop trying to build utopia out of dystopian blocks.

 

[NOTthatHARD]

If only that would actually reduce the cost of their production and games...

Oh, it will "reduce the cost of their production and games", but you can bet your ass that they will ask you to pay 100+$ for their AI slop, mark my words.

 

[ZEGA ZONICZEGA ZONIC's icon]

AI this, AI that. This is not how you use AI.
(Also, I thought AI threads are banned from here.)

 

[BrawlMan]

Sony expects PS5 sales to decline as generative AI businesses continue to hoard memory chips and prices rise as a result

Sony has released its financial results for the past fiscal year. Inside, it predicts a decrease in PS5 hardware sales in the next 12 months.

www.eurogamer.net

Sony Reports $765 Million Impairment Loss Due to Underperformance of Marathon Developer Bungie

Sony has reported a $765 million impairment loss due to underperformance of Marathon developer Bungie during its last financial year.

www.ign.com

Irony....

 

[ShadowsofCreationAga]

True.

My gripe with self-driving cars is that they take away jobs from drivers when there's really no need or reason to.

Some things could benefit immensely from being automated, but when we are just being assholes to workers who had proved reliable doing something (or some flavor of that said "something") for hundreds of years, I think it's time to fuck off and stop trying to build utopia out of dystopian blocks.

'Stop trying to build Utopia out of Dystopian blocks' that is a great and impactful line. I like it.

 

[Ikagura]

Some things could benefit immensely from being automated, but when we are just being assholes to workers who had proved reliable doing something (or some flavor of that said "something") for hundreds of years, I think it's time to fuck off and stop trying to build utopia out of dystopian blocks.

The (first) industrial revolution was also supposed to help automating production yet workers still had to do repetitive and tiring work...

On the other hand I'd say that even if we cannot achieve utopia it's nice to try making a dystopia less bad.

 

[NOTthatHARD]

Sadly, this will continue to happen, in a few years the entire entertainment industry will use AI for everything, but prices won't go down, if anything, expect the $100 price tag for AAA games to become the norm.

 

[Hargad]

Sadly, this will continue to happen, in a few years the entire entertainment industry will use AI for everything, but prices won't go down, if anything, expect the $100 price tag for AAA games to become the norm.

I hope indie and AA games are safe. I know there is a lot of those dime a dozen indieslop AI games, but they usually get ignored and fall by the wayside.