Kanye West has built a lucrative empire on a foundation of music, fashion design and collaborations with adidas. But apparently not all of his dreams have come true. Once upon a time, he was intent on working for video game giant Nintendo but was turned down – more than once.
During a recent episode of the Talking Games With Reggie and Harold podcast, former president and COO of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aimé explained why it just wasn’t the right time for a Kanye collaboration.
“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.’ 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.”
But Ye was apparently undeterred, even though Fils-Aimé was gently trying to dissuade him without hurting his feelings.
“I told him, ‘Kanye, you don’t want to work with us because we’re tough, we’re hard,” he continued. “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.'”
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In 2016, Kanye released a trailer for a mobile game called Only One, which was inspired by the death of his mother Donda West and the single “Only One” featuring Paul McCartney. According to a 2019 report from The Gamer, the film and animation studio Encyclopedia Pictura is “no longer involved” with the project.
Revisit “Only One” below and find the full interview here.
I don’t understand why he needs to “work with Nintendo.”
Download Unreal Engine, hire some developers and make a game. It’s that easy.
Sure, it’s “that easy” if you don’t take quality into account at all.
He wanted to work with what he considered the best.
Nintendo definitely puts out consistent quality if not “the best”
You play a lot of CoD and 2K, I can tell you have no standards for quality with that mentality.
You play Nintendo.. You actually have no idea what a game is, or what quality is. You play reskinned content year after year.
Drop the games, go outside, get vagina, get money, Nintendos are not worth your time.
All of you need to shut the hell up if you play Nintendo games and are calling those “of quality” hell the fact the guy turned Kanye Down saying
“Kanye, you don’t want to work with us because we’re tough, we’re hard,” he continued. “All we do is push for the very best content. We would not be the type of partner you would want to work with.’”
To literally one of the most hardest working rappers is beyond me. No one but children, women, and guys who only play single player cartoon games play a damn Nintendo.
Not saying Kanyes idea was great or anything, his reasoning for turning him down however was stupid as hell, as if Nintendo or any of their games have been a titan in the industry.
Nintendo will continue to sell only to a niche fanbase of women children and men with no lives.
Have you ever heard of “children”? The biggest demographic for video games. Kanye is trash and would have ruined Nintendo anyways, so good thing this didn’t happen.
You look like SHIT KW..??