Nintendo Turned Down Game By Kanye West

Musician Kanye West is no stranger to being in the limelight, but rarely is it in the world of gaming. Recently, former Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, revealed a meeting he had with West about a potential video game. Fils-Aime discussed on his podcast, Talking Games with Reggie & Harold, about his meeting with the rapper.

During an E3 event, West stopped by at Nintendo’s booth and met with Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, and asked to meet with Fils-Aime. The two met at West’s fashion office in Calabasas, California, where West voiced his interest in working with Nintendo on a video game.

“Part of it was talking about what he was up to,” said Fils-Aime. “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.’ 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.’”

Fils-Aime called the meeting “interesting” and took from the event that “Kanye has such a passion for the video game space, and he’s a creator.” He later confirmed that Kanye’s wife, Kim Kardashian, was also there.