Square-Enix Reaffirms They Hold The Only Disney-Sora Partnership Worth A Damn
SHINJUKU, JAPAN — In a press release earlier this morning, Square-Enix announced that, following the severing of ties between Disney and OpenAI, they were once again the sole owners of “The Only Sora Partnership Worth A Damn.” Square-Enix, the popular makes of games such as Brave Fencer Musashi and Bust-A-Groove as well as a back catalog of cult classic franchises, pointed to the main character in their 2002 Action-RPG Kingdom Hearts as the first and, according to their statements, “the best Disney-Sora team up that ever was or will be.”
“We are proud to have put in a great amount of time and effort to ensure our characters blended with Disney’s across the Kingdom Hearts games,” series director Tetsuya Nomura told reporters. “We were initially concerned that Generative AI could be used to create similar crossovers, even with characters outside our control. Luckily we saw the product Sora was putting out, and knew it was only a matter of time.” Giving a hearty chuckle, Nomura continued to say “That thing could only make two seconds of video at a time. That’s, what, ten percent of a cutscene? Each of the artists on our team could do that over lunch individually.”
Sora, the automated video maker from OpenAI best known for the misogynistic talking gorilla shorts your recently divorced friend keeps sending you, has fallen on hard times as of late. In addition to ending their lucrative partnership with Disney, OpenAI also discontinued their public-facing version of Sora, fueling speculation the company as a whole might be in greater trouble. “I would not say OpenAI is cooked. OpenAI is a company with great products plenty of people still enjoy,” a representative from OpenAI replied following the press release. “Cooking is a process wherein heat is applied to meats, vegetables, and other foods to make them more edible and improve their taste. One example involves sautéing 1 tablespoon of garlic in butter.” The representative would then list a detailed yet vastly incorrect recipe for Shrimp DeJonghe without prompt before suddenly ending correspondence.
“I think it’s ultimately for the best we cut off our partnership with OpenAI and focused on what we have with Square-Enix,” Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro tells Commander’s Herald. “The system just absolutely could not keep its characters consistent. And if there’s one thing our company values, even more than money itself, it’s keeping its IP consistent, identifiable, and legally ours for generations to come.”
“With this business finally over between OpenAI and our friends at Disney, we can finally say the Great Evil has been defeated, and we can roll the end credits,” Nomura would say in a separate interview. When asked about his own company’s interest in artificial intelligence, both in behind the scenes QA testing as well as incorporated directly in their games, Nomura stepped back wounded for a moment before letting out a roar, growing wings, and revealing a second health bar.
