Nintendo has earned its reputation for being fiercely protective of its IP, including the Mario characters and the Pokémon universe. However, OpenAI’s newly released Sora 2 has included so many Nintendo characters that it almost seems like it’s inviting a legal response from the Japanese gaming publisher. Sora 2 is an AI-powered video and audio production tool, meaning that you can feed a prompt in, much like similar image generators, to create a video from your description.
According to The New York Times, OpenAI has reached out to major copyright holders and Hollywood stars about being retroactively removed from Sora 2. It’s not clear if a similar effort was made to reach out to Nintendo, but the sheer volume of Pokémon and Mario-inspired Sora 2 content suggests that the AI model was heavily trained on Nintendo’s IP.
i got into sora 2 and the only conclusion I can draw is openai is trying to get sued. this is like 99% of what it shows you immediately upon entering the app pic.twitter.com/BkAXqchK2T
— George Crudo (@GeorgeCrudo) October 1, 2025
Nintendo’s properties aren’t the only ones that appear to have been fed into Sora 2. Others like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Portal have been mashed together as well.
How will Nintendo respond? It was only a year ago that Nintendo went after AI-generated Mario pictures. It seems unlikely that Nintendo will let Sora 2 pass without taking action, especially since the company is famously litigious.
A report earlier this year suggested that Disney is in talks with OpenAI, but the house of mouse decided to sue Midjourney over allegedly misappropriated movies and images. George R.R. Martin and a handful of other authors have previously launched their own lawsuit against OpenAI.
While more Japanese gaming publishers are embracing AI in game creation, OpenAI, Midjourney, and other AI-related startups aren’t acting in partnership with the affected companies. Nintendo has taken a cautious approach to AI, and Shigeru Miyamoto has said that the company won’t rush into AI like other developers. Outgoing Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser has stated that he believes AI will play a role in the creation of games, but he has also stressed the importance of maintaining a “human touch” in game development.
