Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed that musician Kanye West approached Nintendo regarding creating a video game. Speaking on podcast Talking Games With Reggie & Harold, Mr. Fils-Aime said that Kanye spent a lot of time at the Nintendo E3 booth many years ago, even managing to chat at length with legendary Nintendo developer Shigeru Miyamoto. He managed to get an interview with both Shigeru Miyamoto and Reggie at Kanye’s business office for his fashion business in Calibasas to discuss his idea.
“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.’
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.’”
Kanye attended the interview with his wife Kim Kardashian and Reggie recited that the meeting was “interesting.” Reggie said that “Kanye has such a passion for the video game space, and he’s a creator.”