Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed something interesting. At one point Nintendo had an opportunity to work with rapper, record producer, fashion designer, and entrepreneur Kanye West on a video game, but it never came to be.
Kanye West visited Nintendo’s area at E3 a few years ago, and spent a bit of time with Shigeru Miyamoto, and later on, he wanted to arrange for a meeting with Reggie as well. The two ended up getting together at Kanye’s business office for his fashion business in Calibasas.
“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.’”
Reggie did say the the meeting was “interesting” and noted that Kim Kardashian was there as well. Nintendo walked away with the feeling that “Kanye has such a passion for the video game space, and he’s a creator,” but ultimately nothing came of it.
Reggie shared the story about meeting with Kanye through the Talking Games With Reggie & Harold podcast.