Nintendo “Politely Declined” Kanye West’s Attempts To Make A Game Together
Nintendo really told Kanye West they were 'sooo swamped right now, sorry xx'.
Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has said that he had to “politely decline” Kanye West‘s attempts to make a game with the company, repeatedly trying to let the rapper down easy.
Fils-Aime, who was NoA’s president from 2006 to 2019, revealed that the gaming company had a meeting with West a few years back on Talking Games, a seven-part podcast series currently raising funds for a gaming critics’ non-for-profit (via IGN/Nintendo Everything).
West had come to Los Angeles gaming convention E3 and stopped by the Nintendo area, even having a meeting of sorts with Head Nintendo Creator Shigeru Miyamoto. He later made a meeting with Fils-Aime, who went out to West’s offices in Calabasas.
“Part of it was talking about what he was up to,” he said. “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.’”
Fils-Aime says that the company, at the time, was stretched too thin to even entertain working with West, and so he had to “politely decline” the offer, trying to turn the raper off the idea by describing how ‘tough’ Nintendo is to work with.
“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,” he said.
“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.’”
He added that genuine gaming mogul Kim Kardashian was also present, and that West clearly “has such a passion” for gaming.
As IGN notes, in 2016 West announced ‘Only One: The Game’, named after a track on The Life of Pablo. In it, players would guide his late mother Donda West to the gates of heaven. There’s been no update on the game since then.