A different kind of hotel experience is about to be offered up by none other than Atari after it licensed its name for eight branded hotels located across the U.S.
So that there’s no mistaking what the hotels are about, the company will emblazon a giant Atari logo across the side of each one, lighting it up at night to catch the attention of passers-by. And also to assist visiting guests who can’t find it on the map.
According to a release posted on Monday, January 27, the new Atari hotels will, as you’d expect, “focus on the video game universe and the Atari brand.” Featured amenities will include a state-of-the-art eSport studio, an Atari gaming playground, meeting and event rooms, co-working spaces, restaurants, bars, a bakery, a movie theater, and a gym.
The company adds that the hotels will be targeted at “family or business travelers” to offer “a luxurious, relaxed, and one-of-a-kind experience,” which for the business traveler may mean diving into a games room instead of prepping for the next meeting.
The gaming pioneer has teamed up with True North Studio, a U.S. real estate developer, and GSD Group, an IT services company, to develop the hotels, and will take 5% of revenue as part of the licensing deal.
The first hotel is planned to break ground in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2020, close to the first Woz U university campus created by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in 2017. The other cities lined up for an Atari-themed hotel are Austin, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; Las Vegas, Nevada; San Francisco, California; San Jose, California; and Seattle, Washington.
Let’s hope the company has more luck with its hotel project than it’s having with its attempt to launch the Atari VCS console, a modern version of the classic Atari 2600 console from the late 1970s. The new Atari VCS console raised more than $3 million in an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that ended in 2018, but a slew of issues along the way have caused several launch delays. The latest update suggested early backers will receive the console in March 2020.
Oh, and whatever happened to this Atari-branded cap that featured built-in speakers?
