Infogrames Renamed Atari; Phil Harrison Out as President

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 29, 2009 - 10:32am.

Lyon, France - French video game publisher Infogrames, the parent company of Atari, announced on Friday that it will rebrand the company as Atari, and said that Phil Harrison is no longer president of the company.

The news comes as the company also reported a quadrupling of its loss from last year, to $320 million from $72 million a year ago; global sales, however, were up 50% year-over-year, to $193 million.

"This [name change] will enable us to make the best use of the Atari brand, capitalizing on worldwide strong name recognition and affinity, which are keys drivers to implement the Company's online, product and licensing strategies," the company said in a statement.

Due to "a shift of business operations," Phil Harrison -- who left Sony Computer Entertainment last year to become president of Atari -- will now become a non-executive director of the company.

Atari said it expects to regain profitability by the second half of 2010.

"To improve the cash position the company has reorganized the business to focus on more cost effective mass-market games and online," the company said.

"As such, the company has canceled projects which do not meet higher return on investment criteria and require significant working capital investments. Further, the company is working on extending its credit line beyond December 2009."

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