PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino devoted a surprisingly long portion of his recent Sony earnings presentation remarks to making the case for AI and how it will benefit gaming and the company’s bottom line. He was not subtle, and he didn’t hedge, laying out an ambitious vision that sees AI tools incorporated everywhere from the PlayStation Store to the ways in which Naughty Dog and Guerrilla Games render characters’ hair. “We believe AI will unleash the creativity of our studios, power a more curated platform, and enhance the PlayStation experience for both players and creators,” he said. Nishino made the case that generative AI and LLM technology can make the company more efficient and cut out menial work that plagues creatives at various levels of the development process. “For example, our teams created a tool we call Mockingbird that quickly animates 3D facial model based on the performance capture,” he said.…