Kanye West almost made a video game with Nintendo, presumably for the Nintendo Switch. Speaking during a podcast, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that Kanye West approached him and Nintendo at E3 a few years ago about making a game together. According to the former Nintendo of America president, Kanye chatted up Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s most prominent figure head known for creating series like Mario and The Legend of Zelda, at the company’s E3 booth. Eventually, this led to a formal meeting between West and Nintendo, however, nothing ever came of this meeting.
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According to Fils-Aime, who intended the meeting, Nintendo had a lot on its plate at the time, and the prospect of adding a collaboration with Kanye West just wasn’t viable. As a result, the company had to decline the opportunity, and Reggie had to deliver the bad news to both Kanye and his wife Kim Kardashian, who was also present at the meeting.
“Part of it was talking about what he was up to. He was experimenting with a piece of video game content; he wanted reactions to it. He comes out and says, ‘I want to work with Nintendo,” said Fils-Aime.
The former Nintendo of America president continued:
“We had so many different projects at Nintendo going on, the possibility of doing something with Kanye just wasn’t there, and so I had to find a way to politely decline this opportunity to work with him. I told him, ‘Kanye, you don’t want to work with us because we’re tough, we’re hard. All we do is push for the very best content. We would not be the type of partner you would want to work with.’ And he looks at me and says, ‘Reggie, you’re exactly the type of partner I want because of that reason!’ It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh.’”
Reggie concluded by calling the meeting, “interesting,” and by making note of Kanye’s passion for not just creating, but the video game space. It’s unclear if the two parties ever discussed a possible collaboration again and it’s unclear if Kanye is still keen on making whatever he pitched Nintendo on.
That said, as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. Was Nintendo foolish to pass up on this opportunity?
H/T, Talking Games With Reggie & Harold and Nintendo Everything.
