Infogrames buying Atari outright for $11 million

by Alexander Sliwinski { May 1st 2008 at 9:45AM }

Infogrames announced that it will buy the remaining stock of Atari in an $11 million merger and will immediately lend $20 million to the company before the deal closes. Although it's been hard to distinguish the two companies, Infogrames only had a 51.4% controlling interest in Atari, which will now become a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames by the third (calendar) quarter.

Former Sony executive Phil Harrison, who is now Directeur Général Délégué at Infogrames, said a little while ago that we should think of Atari/Infogrames as a start-up ... and we're slowly getting there. With this merger opening up the full-on name change, along with the slew of new executives the company is collecting, the Atari/Infogrames we know now doesn't seem to be the Atari we'll know in a year. Whether any of this fixes the grim financial situation of the publisher, however? That's a story for another time.

Tags: atari, gardner, harrison, infogrames

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

PSN: KillaKornbread (the shirt is a lie!) @ May 1st 2008 9:53AM

well hopefully they'll be able to churn some decent games out of there with all of these changes they've been making lately. they have my attention at least.

Lonecow @ May 1st 2008 10:07AM

I guess we will see. Color me skeptical.

Obie @ May 1st 2008 10:08AM

Infrogames, here is a tip: keep the receipt. ;)

Worst Review Ever @ May 1st 2008 10:19AM

Hell, if you talk to the right person at Wal-mart you don't even need a receipt.

PojoMofo @ May 1st 2008 10:45AM

"Hi mister Wal-mart customer service guy, I would like to return this video game developer, its broken"

WiNG [Life in a Game] @ May 1st 2008 10:28AM

Wow!

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ May 1st 2008 10:45AM

doesn't really matter since EA is going to buy them both anyway

Rob @ May 1st 2008 10:57AM

wow hopefully they will use the Atari name instead of continuing to pretend Infogrames isnt a typo for InForGames.

Joe @ May 1st 2008 12:34PM

Well if Infogrames is a start up company in Phil's mind then Infogrames will need more game studios and I hope they will buy some other companies too. I know they looked at SCI and I for one think SCI should merge with them because SCI needs all the help they can get.

Also this is good news for Atari I hope new IPs will come out of this.

Lars @ May 1st 2008 1:18PM

Wow, only 11 mil? Poor Atari...

ZeroCorpse @ May 1st 2008 1:53PM

I know what will save Atari! A NEW CONSOLE!

Come on, guys! Ignore that the Jaguar ever existed, and give us the Atari 10400 VCS. It's time to rise from the ashes!

And don't forget the WOOD GRAIN.

Zeus.:God @ May 1st 2008 4:27PM

Hopefully we will see a new Test Drive Off-Road: Wide Open, that or a new Test Drive Unlimited.

Martyg @ May 4th 2008 1:34PM

11 Million was to much, Infogrames essentially paid 11 million to buy back the lease on the name and properties. Atari Inc. had nothing, they were leasing the Atari name and old properties from Infogrames, they had sold off their development studios and most of their modern properties, there was only a handful of staff (less than 10). They had moved to a "publishing" only business model, only they had very little in way of a distribution network.