Konami Digital Entertainment president Hideki Hayakawa says game engines already opened the door, and people, not AI tools, still make games worth playing.
Konami's president isn't sold on the AI hype. Hideki Hayakawa, who runs Konami Digital Entertainment, said in a recent company report that he doubts AI will significantly change the game market.
His reasoning is simple. Game engines and player creation platforms already made it easy for newcomers to build games, so AI isn't opening a new door. And even if AI speeds up production, he says people and creators are what make games fun and original.
For fans, it suggests AI will stay a background tool at Konami rather than a replacement for its developers.
Konami AI plans just got a reality check from the very top. Hideki Hayakawa, president of Konami Digital Entertainment, says he doubts AI will bring a significant change to the game market, and that people, not software, are what make games worth playing.
If you play Metal Gear, Silent Hill or Yu-Gi-Oh! games, that tells you something about how Konami plans to make them. Many gaming executives are pitching AI as a way to cut costs and ship faster. Hayakawa is pushing back on the idea that faster automatically means better.
Hayakawa set out his view in a recent Konami corporate report, described in one account as the integrated report for the fiscal year that ended in March 2026. His remarks were first published in Japanese, so the English wording going around comes from translations and may not be exact.
Asked whether AI could open the door to a wave of new developers, he argued the door is already open. General-purpose game engines and user-generated content platforms, the services that let players build and share their own creations, lowered that barrier long before generative AI showed up.
He went further. Even if AI makes production more efficient, he said, people and creators are still the biggest factors in making fun, inventive games. He described what happens when developers from different backgrounds work together as a chemical reaction that can’t easily be swapped out.
Plenty of publishers see generative AI, software that produces text, images, code or voices on request, as the next big money saver. Its fans say it means smaller teams, quicker changes and cheaper games. Hayakawa’s counterpoint is about demand: making more games more easily doesn’t mean players will want more of them, or that they’ll be any more original.
There’s a timing point too. If engines and creation platforms already let almost anyone build a game, AI isn’t the thing letting newcomers in. That shift happened earlier, so the big promise attached to AI arrives a little late.
This isn’t a refusal to use the technology. Konami says it gives creators structured help to learn new tools, judge the risks and use them safely in development. In a corporate blog post earlier this year, the company listed AI among the technologies it plans to pursue, alongside cloud, Web3, NFTs and VR/AR.
Konami has used AI before, with mixed results. Its Japanese casino business uses it to automate player identification and identity checks. The company also drew heavy backlash in Japan after it produced AI-generated commentary for a Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship using a cloned voice of voice actress and singer Hibiku Yamamura without her consent.
For players, the practical takeaway is that AI at Konami looks set to stay behind the scenes, helping with workflows and routine jobs, rather than replacing the people making design decisions. That covers some of gaming’s biggest names. Metal Gear Solid has sold 65.5 million copies since 1998, making it Konami’s best-selling series, ahead of Yu-Gi-Oh! games at 32.5 million and Silent Hill at just over 14 million.
Player mood helps explain the caution. Gamers have loudly criticized AI-made art in recent big releases, and some companies, including RuneScape maker Jagex and Warhammer firm Games Workshop, have banned AI use internally.
Hayakawa’s position also puts Konami at odds with most of its peers, who are far more upbeat about AI in game development. Which approach produces better games is something players will judge one release at a time.
Konami helps its creators learn and safely test new tools, but its president says people and creators remain the most important part of making games.
He’s the representative director and president of Konami Digital Entertainment, the company’s video game business.
No. Hayakawa said AI may improve efficiency but doubts it will significantly change the game market.
You're reading the quick version.
Read next
Amazon ramps to 27 satellites a week as Leo nears launch
Amazon says its Leo constellation is weeks from offering commercial broadband after building its 1,000th satellite and accelerating production.
MOZA’s AY210 base and MFY Yoke bundle push flight sims toward realism, but the steep cost and a few quirks mean it’s not for casual sim fans.
Despite talk of a halt, Nvidia maintains the RTX 5090 is not discontinued and is being shipped, even as stock remains scarce.
A nine-year mod resurfaces as a Raspberry Pi Pico lets a hacker bypass Xbox 360 cryptography with nanosecond timing.
The Daily Brief
Every morning, the news that matters from AI, phones, apps and the people shaping tech. Explained in plain English. Free.
One email a day. No spam, unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy
