In a bizarre new Instagram video, Soulja Boy announced himself as the owner of Atari, making himself “the first rapper to own a video game company”.
The rapper, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, shared the video on August 18 wearing a hat and tee-shirt with the company’s logo, saying, “they signed me to a deal with Atari”, sounding at first like a partnership.
However, Soulja Boy continued, “I’m about to revamp the company, we’re gonna take Atari to the next level. Everybody go follow @Atari. I am now the owner of Atari.”
As reported in GamingBible, the rapper has announced a number of his own SouljaGame-branded consoles in recent years, although these were found to be stolen designs that were shut down by Sony and Nintendo lawyers.
Nonetheless, in the video he claimed Atari were “real proud of me of what I did with the Soulja Boy game console” and that he was about to sell the company for US$140million.
However, Atari has responded to the claims earlier today (August 20) via Twitter: “We know that CEO of Atari is a dream job, but that honour belongs to Wade Rosen.”
We know that CEO of Atari is a dream job, but that honor belongs to Wade Rosen
— Atari (@atari) August 20, 2021
Atari released a new console in June, which is a modern take on the classic 1977 VCS system that comes pre-installed with classic Atari games but also functions as a Linux-powered PC.
The company also said that it would be moving away from free-to-play and mobile markets to focus on premium console and PC games.
Elsewhere, a new video report alleges Roblox is exploiting young game developers. The investigation claims that the platform encourages its users, primarily children, to make and monetise their games, but processes means very little revenue actually leaves its ecosystem.
The post Soulja Boy announces himself as the owner of Atari, Atari disagrees appeared first on NME.
