Sony says “efficient” AI tools will lead to even more games flooding the market

索尼表示，“高效”的 AI 工具将导致更多游戏涌入市场

Anyone following the modern game industry knows that easy-to-use game engines and the accelerating shift to digital distribution have helped enable a massive increase in the quantity of commercial games released each year, both on console storefronts and especially on Steam. 任何关注现代游戏产业的人都知道，易于使用的游戏引擎和向数字发行模式的加速转型，已经促使每年发行的商业游戏数量大幅增加，无论是在主机商店还是在 Steam 平台上，情况尤为明显。

Now, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Hideaki Nishino says we should expect the rate of new game releases to accelerate even faster as new AI development tools make it easier for developers big and small to pursue new projects efficiently. 现在，索尼互动娱乐（SIE）总裁兼首席执行官西野秀明（Hideaki Nishino）表示，随着新的 AI 开发工具让大大小小的开发者能够更高效地推进新项目，我们应该预见到新游戏的发布速度将会进一步加快。

In a presentation to investors on Friday, Nishino noted that Sony “expect[s] to see a meaningful increase in the volume and diversity of content available to players” in the near future. That increase is the inevitable result of AI development tools that are “lowering barriers to creation, accelerating development cycles, and enabling more creators to enter the market,” he said. 在周五向投资者发表的演讲中，西野秀明指出，索尼“预计在不久的将来，玩家可获得的内容在数量和多样性上都会有显著增长”。他表示，这种增长是 AI 开发工具带来的必然结果，这些工具正在“降低创作门槛，加速开发周期，并使更多的创作者能够进入市场”。

By way of evidence, Nishino cited Sony’s first-party game development efforts. Gamemakers inside Sony are already using AI tools to “automat[e] repetitive workflows” in areas like quality assurance, 3D modeling, and animation, he said. That includes a 3D animation tool called Mockingbird that Nishino said allows Sony artists to convert raw motion capture data into in-game animation much faster. 为了证明这一点，西野秀明提到了索尼的第一方游戏开发工作。他表示，索尼内部的游戏制作人员已经在质量保证、3D 建模和动画等领域使用 AI 工具来“自动化重复性工作流程”。这包括一款名为 Mockingbird 的 3D 动画工具，西野秀明称该工具使索尼的艺术家能够更快速地将原始动作捕捉数据转换为游戏内动画。

While this tool can’t replace the motion-capture actors themselves, it means that “animation work that would have taken hours can now be completed in a fraction of a second,” Nishino said. Machine learning tools have also been able to take in “videos of real hairstyles” and apply them to automated animation models that can realistically model “hundreds of strands,” replacing the “labor-intensive process” of animatorslicer placing those strands individually, Nishino said. 西野秀明表示，虽然该工具无法取代动作捕捉演员本身，但它意味着“原本需要数小时才能完成的动画工作，现在可以在几分之一秒内完成”。他还提到，机器学习工具已经能够摄取“真实发型的视频”，并将其应用于自动动画模型，从而逼真地模拟“数百根发丝”，取代了动画师逐一放置发丝的“劳动密集型过程”。

Elsewhere in the presentation, Sony Group President and CEO Hiroki Totoki praised the increased “efficiency” enabled by AI tools, saying it would, in turn, lead to “more innovative and ambitious projects—projects that were previously difficult to pursue due to constraints of cost and time.” Totoki also highlighted a pilot partnership with publisher Bandai Namco that “identified massive gains in speed and productivity per person” in video production. 在演讲的其他部分，索尼集团总裁兼首席执行官十时裕树（Hiroki Totoki）称赞了 AI 工具带来的“效率”提升，并表示这将反过来促成“更多创新和雄心勃勃的项目——这些项目此前因成本和时间的限制而难以实现”。十时裕树还强调了与发行商万代南梦宫（Bandai Namco）的一项试点合作，该合作在视频制作方面“实现了人均速度和生产力的巨大提升”。

While the team has needed to fine-tune generic AI models to prevent problems of “consistency and controllability,” Totoki added that these models can, in some cases, help enable “highly sophisticated and realistic outputs which were not feasible before due to production time constraints.” 虽然团队需要对通用 AI 模型进行微调以防止“一致性和可控性”方面的问题，但十时裕树补充说，在某些情况下，这些模型可以帮助实现“以前因生产时间限制而无法实现的、高度复杂且逼真的输出”。

Even as AI enables a flood of new game releases, Sony said it believes AI will help players navigate that glut. AI models can already “outperform manual curation” when it comes to suggesting new games players might enjoy, Nishino said, and could soon also suggest “the next gameplay moment, subscription, accessory, or merchandise that best reflects their passion.” 尽管 AI 带来了大量新游戏的涌入，但索尼表示相信 AI 将帮助玩家应对这种过剩。西野秀明表示，在推荐玩家可能喜欢的游戏方面，AI 模型已经能够“超越人工策划”，并且很快就能建议“最能体现玩家热情的下一个游戏时刻、订阅服务、配件或周边商品”。

The human equation / 人为因素

Despite Sony’s predictions, there isn’t necessarily a direct relationship between developer efficiency and the raw number of game releases over a given period. Gains in efficiency could reduce the total number of human developers working on a project, rather than the total time spent on it, for instance. On the other side of things, more efficient development tools could increase the baseline quality expectations for high-end game development, meaning more time is needed to meet that baseline. 尽管索尼做出了预测，但开发者效率与特定时期内游戏发行的原始数量之间并不一定存在直接关系。例如，效率的提升可能会减少项目所需的人类开发者总数，而不是减少项目花费的总时间。另一方面，更高效的开发工具可能会提高高端游戏开发的基准质量预期，这意味着需要更多时间来达到该基准。

Despite Sony’s bullishness on AI’s game development potential, the company stopped well short of suggesting that AI could replace game designers wholesale or make entire games from scratch. Nishino said directly that “AI is meant to augment [developers’] capabilities, not to replace them,” and that humans will always be responsible for “the vision, the design, and the emotional impact of our games.” 尽管索尼对 AI 在游戏开发方面的潜力持乐观态度，但该公司并未暗示 AI 可以全面取代游戏设计师或从零开始制作整个游戏。西野秀明直言：“AI 的目的是增强（开发者的）能力，而不是取代他们”，人类将始终负责“我们游戏的愿景、设计和情感影响”。

Speaking more broadly, Totoki said Sony maintains a “core principle” that “human creativity must remain at the center” of the company’s creative efforts. Totoki called AI “an amplifier of human imagination” while saying in practically the same breath that “great content comes from deep personal experiences, unique perspectives, and a strong inner motivation to express something meaningful.” 从更广泛的角度来看，十时裕树表示，索尼坚持一个“核心原则”，即“人类的创造力必须始终处于”公司创意工作的中心。十时裕树称 AI 是“人类想象力的放大器”，同时几乎在同一时间表示，“伟大的内容源于深刻的个人经历、独特的视角以及表达有意义事物的强烈内在动力。”

At the same time, though, Nishino suggested that Sony’s development teams have created “prototypes where NPCs with their own personalities can create a living, dynamic world for the player to explore.” It’s unclear what role human artists would have in a world where NPCs can have their own AI-generated “personalities,” but it would definitely be a far cry from the role they play in game development today. 然而与此同时，西野秀明暗示索尼的开发团队已经创建了“原型，其中拥有独立人格的 NPC 可以为玩家创造一个生动、动态的探索世界”。目前尚不清楚在 NPC 可以拥有 AI 生成的“人格”的世界中，人类艺术家将扮演什么角色，但这肯定与他们今天在游戏开发中所扮演的角色大相径庭。