Collaborations with musicians are not uncommon in the video game industry (we still shudder when we are reminded of people like Kris Kross: make my video and the weight of Aerosmith Revolution X) and it looks like we almost had a similar formation between Nintendo and good old Yeezy himself.
Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime explained that, during an E3 show a few years ago, Kanye West visited the Nintendo booth and spent some time talking to the one and only Shigeru Miyamoto. After this meeting of minds, West later invited Reggie to a meeting in the office of his fashion business, with his wife Kim Kardashian also present – putting the former Nintendo president in a very difficult situation:
Part of that was talking about what he was doing. He was experiencing video game content; he wanted reactions to that. He comes in and says, ‘I want to work with Nintendo.’ We had so many different projects going on at Nintendo that the possibility of doing something with Kanye just didn’t exist, so I had to find a way to politely refuse this opportunity to work with him. I said to him, ‘Kanye, you don’t want to work with us because we are tough, we are tough. All we do is look for the best content. We would not be the type of partner you would like to work with. ‘And he looks at me and says,’ Reggie, you’re exactly the type of partner I want for that reason! ‘ It’s like, ‘Oh my God.’
Kanye has a great passion for the video game space and is a creator.
You can listen to the full discussion of the Talking Games With Reggie & Harold Podcast, which aims to raise funds for the non-profit mentoring work of the New York Critic’s Circle Video Game.