Nintendo has denied reports that it has been lobbying Japanese lawmakers against generative AI, insisting it “has not had any contact with the Japanese government” about the highly controversial emerging tech.
The denial comes after Japanese politician Satoshi Asano posted an apology on social media after claiming Nintendo was lobbying the Japanese government. This was followed by a further apology earlier today, after which Satoshi deleted the original post.
While the megacorp typically declines to comment on speculation, on this occasion Nintendo was keen to shoot the rumour down and stressed that while it was not lobbying, “whether generative AI is involved or not, we will continue to take necessary actions against infringement of our intellectual property rights”.
“Contrary to recent discussions on the internet, Nintendo has not had any contact with the Japanese government about generative AI,” the company wrote.
“Whether generative AI is involved or not, we will continue to take necessary actions against infringement of our intellectual property rights.”
Nintendo recently shared its thoughts on generative AI, and assured fans that its games will always have “a human touch”, with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser saying: “We still believe that what makes our games special is our developers, their artistic capabilities, their insight into how people play. So, there’s always, always going to be a human touch, and a human engagement in how we develop and build our games.”
Nintendo’s position is at odds with many of its contemporaries. Back in 2024, Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu stated the company would be “aggressive in applying AI”, with developers admitting they “dabbled” with AI for the ill-fated shooter Foamstars, Professor Layton studio Level-5 has used AI tool Stable Diffusion, and even Capcom has admitted experimenting with generative AI too. Sega also has an in-house AI team.
In fact, a recent survey conducted by the Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association (CESA), the organiser of Tokyo Game Show, showed that over half of Japanese game companies are using AI in their development.