Persona producer believes that AI art will be “very useful” in future concept phases

Kazuhisa Wada, a producer of multiple entries in the Persona franchise, expressed interest in implementing art generated by artificial intelligence (AI) into the early stages of a game’s production in an interview.

The details:

• Wada expressed interest in the progress of AI in recent years and stated that the technology behind AI-generated art could be "very useful in the future" in a snippet from a recent interview with the developers behind the successful Japanese RPG series. Other members of the Atlus art team appear to agree, as Wada confirms that they have been discussing the possibility of implementing AI in some form in the future. When asked why Wada wants to use AI, he gave an example of a situation where it could work faster than a human, saying, "Coming up with rough ideas, an AI can continuously output one idea after another, something that a single artist might struggle with," and that the basic process could be handled by using AI "right away."
• AI art has recently become a hot topic on the internet, with many questioning the ethics of using the technology as it becomes more capable of producing believable results. We saw a massive wave of social media users using AI portraits generated by providing a small handful of selfies to create artwork that looked like it was digitally painted by a human artist. Many are worried that AI will cause people to disregard traditional artists not only because the cost of producing artwork is lower and more straightforward using apps like starryai, but also because many of these AI bots scrape the internet to produce more accurate results, which many see as theft.
• It's unclear whether Wada and the Persona team will proceed with their plans in the future, or if they will opt to stick with the status quo if the AI hype fades. Persona 6 is almost certainly in development, with leaks claiming that we will learn more about the rumored project in the summer of 2023, and the likelihood of AI assisting in development appears to be low given Wada's comments. At the moment, Persona 5: The Phantom X, a free-to-play mobile spin-off of the massively successful Persona 5, has just been released in China, but there's no word on when it will be released outside of the country.

Other recent gaming news:

• Sega, Tencent, and other publishers and developers have confirmed that they will not be attending E3 in June, with many instead favoring other trade shows or creating their showcase events. They join the big three of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, who all stated that they would all be skipping the event earlier this year.
• An investigation into Ubisoft’s Paris studio has allegedly revealed that the development of Just Dance 2023 was a "mess" and that many of its developers suffered from burnout as a result of constant pressure from higher-ups to rework and add new features. A staff member claimed that they had worked regular 13-hour shifts, while others were reported as being "explicitly encouraged" to work overtime in meetings.
• According to recent rumors, E3 could see the reveal of a Metal Gear Solid 3 remake as well as a new Castlevania. Konami announced a remake of Silent Hill 2 for October 2022, and it appears that the once-respected company is attempting to regain fan favor by returning to some of its iconic franchises after more recent entries underperformed.