In one of the odd game stories that would appear in 2020, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that Kanye West once approached the company to collaborate on a project.
Fils-Aime has the story of the encounter with West on his Talking games with Reggie & Herold podcast, as noted by a recent post on Nintendo Everything. On the podcast, Fils-Aime said that the hip-hop artist / producer / fashion designer visited during the E3 event near Nintendo during the event and spent some time with famed game director Shigeru Miyamoto.
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To hear Fils-Aime tell it, West then asked to meet with him. According to Fils-Aime, the two eventually met at West’s business office in California, where the rapper continued to shoot his shot.
“Part of [the meeting] talked about what he was doing. He is experimenting with a piece of video game content; he wanted reactions to it. He comes out and says, ‘I want to work with Nintendo,’ Fils-Aime recalled. ‘We had so many different projects at Nintendo, the possibility of doing something with Kanye was just there, and I politely had to find a way to refuse this opportunity to work with him. ‘
Fils-Aime said he tried to gently let go of the multi-hyphen. “I told him, ‘Kanye, you do not want to work with us because we are difficult, we are difficult. All we do is strive for the best content. We are not the type of partner you want. and he looks at me and says, ‘Reggie, that’s why you’re exactly the type of partner I want!’ It’s like, ‘Oh woe.’
The former CEO of Nintendo of America described the meeting as “interesting” and mentioned that Kim Kardashian-West was also at the meeting. The meeting, of course, did not amount to a collaboration between Nintendo and Kanye West, but it’s a strange thing to introduce you to.
The Chat games with Reggie & Harold podcast is a seven-part series compiled in April in support of the New York Videogame Critics Circle, a nonprofit organization that aims to raise funds to provide education, mentorship, and scholarships to homeless high school students in New York City. to ensure.
You can donate to the cause here and receive bonus content, such as this Kanye story, for contributions.
West has in the past announced its interest in developing video games. Back in 2015, West announced a mobile game Just one, named after a single one of him. He once described the game by saying, “The idea of the game is my mother traveling through the gates of heaven.”
The game would be produced by the film and animation studio Encyclopedia Pictura in Los Angeles. In 2019, Encyclopedia Pictura told The player that it was no longer involved in the project.