Atari exited business as a video game house today, and will rely onit's distributon as it's primary business. This is after losing almost a billion dollars. I really could care less, but this might mean a lot of dev hardware is up for grabs.
Infogrames own the name Atari. This was on their French website dated 5th November '07. http://corporate.infogrames.com/2007/10/communique-concernant-atari-inc-du-5-octobre-2007.php "In accordance with the strategic objectives that it set and which is pointed out above, the Board of directors of IESA decided, at his meeting on October 5, 2007, to exert his right, in the capacity as majority shareholder of Atari Inc and in accordance with the regulation in force in the State of Delaware, to modify the composition of the Board of directors of Atari Inc" On the 13th November the Chief Exec David Pierce resigned his position, immediately replaced by the strangely named Curtis G. Solsvig III, who sounds like a games character himself! Again on 13th, Atari announced "Atari to Refocus Business Plan on Publishing and Distribution in North America", but no mention of anything elsewhere. This at the same time as releasing 2 games titles - busy day! Interestingly, those titles were developed by Hydravision & Spike.
Was anything of value really lost? I mean, besides the endless DBZ games and horrible Driver games. The only thing I can really remember recent Atari by is publishing Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2. Besides, the old Atari died long ago and is only Atari in name...
Not really, they can still hold the licenses and then lease it to the developers the contract with. Save some money that way.
Infogrames, I think. Too many rehashes and duff ideas, and not enough money after the buyout of the brand.
Apparently, only the US developers were affected by this news. Atari Europe is still doing quite well, which means that all games from the European arm (ie: Infogrames) will not be affected - such as the new Alone in the Dark. 'Atari's head of UK PR, Lee Kirton, told GameSpot today, "For Atari Europe business is fine. There's been some restructuring in the US but it doesn't affect Europe."' http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6183315.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;4
How do you figure? The entire back catalogue of old Atari is like a great mountain next to a grain of sand (Infogrames' output).
