This 'gaming mattress' is a regular, cheap mattress with a twist

There’s depressing news (plenty of it) and then there’s news that makes you stare out the window and wonder how, exactly, we as a society got to this point in time. They’re not necessarily sad stories, but they’re — how do I put this lightly — distressing. They make us wonder whether or not humanity has made some irreparable mistakes that led to this particular moment.

All this to say: Here is a gaming mattress. The capital-G, capital-M Gaming Mattress. As far as we can tell it’s the only one that’s ever been made, unlike the myriad of gaming chairs available on the market. Which makes sense, because, well, why would you need a mattress made specifically for gaming?

Bauhutte, a Japanese brand known for its gaming furniture, added the Gaming Mattress to its wares this month. (Many thanks to Kotaku for spotting this one.) It’s like a gaming chair except… longer? Flatter? Based on the images Bauhutte created to market the mattress, it does look like this is meant to be a mattress for both sleep and playtime. But it’s also just, well, a normal mattress.

They really did that — The Gaming Mattress is a mattress upon which you can game. And one you can sleep on after gaming. That’s the long and the short of it. According to Bauhutte’s website, this particular mattress is made of high-resilience urethane. It’s only a little over 3 inches thick, so we wouldn’t expect it to be all that great for a full night’s sleep, but Bauhutte says specifically that the mattress’s “slit structure with cuts” is meant to match the structure of a human body and provide a comfortable sleep.

The Gaming Mattress is made by a company called Nishikawa, a Japan-based mattress-maker that’s been around for nearly half a millennium. (That’s not an exaggeration; the company was founded 455 years ago.) That probably means you can expect the mattress quality to be at least pretty good. It also means it’s likely not all that different than what you’d get if you just went for a general-use Nishikawa mattress.

Thanks, I guess? — The Gaming Mattress is, by all accounts, just a mattress. Its implications for society writ large are, as far as we can tell, limited to what we personally ascribe to it. The Gaming Mattress can’t hurt you. Especially not if you keep a safe distance.

The Gaming Mattress will be available in three sizes: single, semi-double, and double, with the smallest priced at 28,500 yen (about $255) and the largest at 43,500 yen (~$390). If you feel like going all-out on the schtick, Bauhutte offers a full Gaming Bed setup to go along with it. Existential sadness is not included, but you should be able to get that for free.