You’ve probably called someone an arsehat before. But do you know what an arsehat literally is?
Credit: Atari
It’s this. This Speakerhat is an arsehat. It is a hat with two embedded speakers and a microphone that connects to your phone via Bluetooth. It’s for the casual hat-wearer who wants to bathe their face in music, but also doesn’t care if they’re annoying the crap out of everyone in their general vicinity.
The Speakerhat is a collaboration between Audiowear and Atari. But why would a 45-year-old gaming company want to pivot to arsehats?
Atari executives told VentureBeat last month at E3 that the Speakerhat is part of a strategy shift for the company. COO Michael Arzt said Speakerhat is the first of a “full range of connected personal devices that live at society’s intersection of entertainment, technology and social connectivity”.
But at the same event, CEO Fred Chesnai also announced to VentureBeat that Atari is finally making a new gaming console, something gamers have actually been wanting for years. Initial reports were sceptical, but suffice to say there is more excitement for the Ataribox than there will ever be for a boombox you can put on your head.
This spring, Atari will also release a limited-edition Blade Runner 2049 Speakerhat, for arsehats who like sci-fi.
The target demographic for the Speakerhat could be the arsehats who plays music too loud on public transportation. But Atari says it is marketing this arsehat to musicians, skaters, sports fans and “fitness enthusiasts“, which presumably means arsehats who work out. A good way to make people hate you at the gym would be to work out while wearing a hat with speakers.
The Speakerhat was also made with gamers in mind, as it comes with “multiplayer mode”, which allows several arsehats to connect their arsehats and listen to the same audio stream. Atari calls this a “fundamentally new social audio experience”. We call it arseynchronicity.