Atari is opening 8 gaming-themed hotels across the United States, which will feature immersive virtual and augmented reality experiences. The first hotel will open in Phoenix, with construction set to commence midway through this year.
The hotels will be built in partnership with GSD Group, who have acquired the rights to build the video game-themed venues. Atari is one of the oldest video game companies around, famous for its gaming hardware in the 20th century and some iconic titles such as Pong and RollerCoaster Tycoon.
While Phoenix will be the first location, there are also plans for hotels in Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose. Select locations will also feature facilities for esports tournaments as well.
There are no concrete details on what exactly we can expect on the VR and AR side of things, besides the hotels including “the latest in VR and AR (Virtual and Augmented Reality).”
There’s a chance that we could see VR experiences based on IPs that famously appeared on Atari hardware, such as Pac-Man. We tried out a Pac-Man VR experience while in Japan recently for the VR Culture Show, which you can check out in the video embedded above. Given that these experiences have already been developed, it’s possible some of them could be licensed out and end up in the Atari hotels, given their significance to the Atari brand.
Alongside the press release, Atari released a piece of concept art of the potential design of the hotel, featuring a sleek Atari logo down one side, as pictured below:
In perhaps the wildest part of the press release, Atari announced that GSD Group is leading the hotel development and design in conjunction with Napoleon Smith III. Who is Napoleon Smith III, you might ask? Only the producer of the both films in the rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise from 2014 and 2016. That’s right – the producer of two TMNT films is designing a hotel chain for Atari. What a time to be alive.
You can find more information at the Atari Hotels website.
