Atari: Losses will be $70 million

Publisher confirms previous estimates of the amount of a 'goodwill impairment charge.'

Atari has released a statement regarding its annual financial figures today, after delaying the announcement in June as it calculated a "final determination regarding a goodwill impairment charge."

The Infogrames subsidiary had intended to post the full report on June 29, but will now be posting it before the end of a permitted 15-day extension period. However, it has already reported that it will be filing a net loss of $71.3 million (equal to $5.29 a share), as it had previously predicted.

Atari also confirmed that the goodwill impairment charge would total $54.1 million, equal to $4.02 a share, and that net revenues for the year ended March 31, 2007 would be approximately $121.6 million.

The Neverwinter Nights 2, Driver, and Enter The Matrix publisher announced in May that it would be cutting 20 percent of its workforce, mainly in admin roles, to "reduce general and administrative cost." Bruno Bonnell, variously the company's chairman, chief creative officer, chief financial officer, and director, stepped down in September to hand over the reins to new CEO David Pierce.

82 Comments

  • munsoned

    Posted Jul 5, 2007 3:33 am PT

    how can u lose 70 mil when ur bankrupt?

    give it up guys. u almost killed gaming....

  • Vorlonwatcher

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 11:26 pm PT

    I want to find whichever accountant/PR-twit came up with the term "goodwill impairment charge" and beat them with a stick... see how impaired their goodwill is then.

  • aRE-you-AFraid

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 5:49 pm PT

    Atari stock has cost me hundreds of dollars!

  • bigmick07

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 2:08 pm PT

    "Atari hasn't made a decent porfit for a long time"
    Yeah and when was the last time they made a game that wasn't already a movie or tv show?

  • blackace

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 1:58 pm PT

    Atari hasn't made a decent profit in a long, long time. They are slowly going under and executives are jumping ship left and right. It's too bad, as Atari was once a great company. They will need a bigger company to buy them out for them to survive into the future.

  • JLev

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 1:52 pm PT

    What a lot of us don't realize is that a financial blow of 70+ million to Atari could have severe repercussions on the gaming industry. Like them or not, if a giant like Atari is sinking then that will scare potential investors away from making games. That means less games, DBZ or otherwise, for people to chose from and play.

    Also, Atari is a huge corporation that contracts the development of numerous games. To either blame them or praise them for the work of the smaller companies they contracted with is a bit lame. Criticize Atari for its financial success or failure, because that is what a corporation's job is all about.

  • NeoNavarro

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 12:08 pm PT

    This is terrible news... poor Atari... then again when was the last time Atari made a decent game?

  • Custard_Machine

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 8:50 am PT

    Alone In The Dark looks amazing and I hope it will reverse Atari's fortune's. It's a great company with a substantial heritage in the industry despite having a few really bad games in the past years. All I can say is keep an eye out

  • Jebril

    Posted Jul 4, 2007 5:55 am PT

    This isn't Atari the Console Maker for christs' sake.....

    Just let this company die, if it does die DBZ will probbably go to Ubisoft (Like Naruto) and than we can finally see some good anime games. The last good DBZ game was DBZ HyperDimension and that was on the SNES.

  • kavadias1981

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:42 pm PT

    When was the last time Atari actually made a profit?

  • axia_777

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:06 pm PT

    Atari is not even Atari any more. They have not been the same company since the mid 80's. They went bankrupt. And for the record, they sucked then at business as well as now. They are just like VUG, except that Atari does not have a World of Warcraft to bail their azzes out of the red and into the black. Oh well. I wish that the would come out with a Dungeons and Dragons MMO worth playing. One based in, say, THE FORGOTTEN REALMS!!!! Morons and idiots all. They need to scrap DnD Online and start over in The Realms, in Waterdeep preferably. And get someone else besides Turbine to do it. Then I will pay them monthly again, if it kicked azz that is.

  • Dryker

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:08 pm PT

    I like how Mhder stated that the home videogame industry has been "fairly healthy since" Nintendo ressurected it after the slump of Atari consoles, yeah, if you consider :Highest money making form of entertainment media in one day ever, fairly healthy.

  • AnFangs_Endes

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 9:54 pm PT

    @BigDaveyDogz: No I'm not being serious, I know that they've been around for quite awhile, and that they're a shadow of their former self.

  • randy120

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 5:29 pm PT

    "goodwill impairment charge"

    Is the most stupid thing I have ever read. Makes no sense.

  • Pete5506

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 5:17 pm PT

    wow thats a big loss, to bad

  • ScreamDream

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 3:11 pm PT

    Want to make some Money Atari? Try making a new game of your following classics for next gen systems...
    Primal Rage, Blasteroids, Escape from the Planet of Robot Monsters, Super Bug, Lunar Lander, Stunt Cycle, Lemans, Battlezone, Hard Drivin'. I'm not talking about a mini download but a full featured game.

  • GoodkupoBan

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 2:52 pm PT

    UT3 would of helped a lot, too bad they lost that.

  • Tranceplant

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 2:29 pm PT

    They need to make better games. They can't survive on Dragon Ball Z games alone.

  • mhder

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 2:23 pm PT

    This is Atari by name only right? Now, I guess Atari could be given credit for starting home console gaming but they almost drove the industry into the ground in the 80's if I understand correctly. Nintendo brought the industry out of the funk, made it mainstream/acceptable and it's been fairly healthy since.

  • Pumper

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 1:39 pm PT

    Please, sell the rights to RollerCoaster Tycoon so a "competent" company can publish part 4 if there ever is one! Any Matrix games and DragonBall Z crap will not be missed.

  • lamprey263

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 1:37 pm PT

    nevershort, Atari is the zombie of its former self, and though you may love it, you're just going to have to shoot it in the head. True, Atari did give birth to consoles, but a great deal of those games developed for the 2600 were by the people that up and left Atari to create Activision, and now look where Activision is at. They were the first 3rd party game developers (let's also not forget that they're still one of the largest 3rd party game developres).

    Atari died when Warner Communications bought it out for $28 million. The new management killed Atari. Atari's father, Noland Bushnell, was forced to leave because they didn't like how he ran things. Then Atari's best talent was so unappreciated both in recognition for their achievements and with financial reciprocation that they up and left. This is all in that History of Video Games movie on Google Video.

  • unbreakable4534

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 1:12 pm PT

    Sigh... so long Atari.

  • Bigboss232

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:45 pm PT

    oh no not atari i hope it dosent die come on atari hang in there.

  • VolcanoMan001

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:32 pm PT

    Atari has been dead and gone for many years. The current "Atari" is name only, purchased and revived to cash in on the memory of the old gamers. Too bad they can't do more with the name.

  • springdaddy

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:31 pm PT

    Who the hell is running this company, because whoever it is, they are an idiot.

  • FenixWolf

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:31 pm PT

    For those of you talking about the old Atari systems and how wonderful they used to be... it seems that Infogrames has fooled people. The Atari of today is a company that has (unsuccessfully) tried to capitalize on the use of a name they BOUGHT the rights to use.

    Regardless, the current Atari's a good company, and it seems saddening that they're failing. I do hope they turn over and start profiting again. NWN was amazing, and I'm buying NWN 2 soon enough. Enter the Matrix was fun, too. And UT 2004 was released under the name as well. All fun games.

  • LosDaddie

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:21 pm PT

    whoa....bad, bad news for Atari

  • liljio14

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:21 pm PT

    Dbz is the only franchise that's good they have

  • GreenGoblin2099

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:13 pm PT

    Atari 2600 was the first console I had... good memories. I'll miss when they are gone.

  • nevershort

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:12 pm PT

    They may have produced crap games lately.... BUT show some respect for one of the founding fathers in gaming people!!! Or are most of you too young to even have played Atari??? My 1st system was an Atari and I'll never forget it cuz thats what got me into gaming...

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:08 pm PT

    Yeah...This was so coming to them. I hate to see them go but it seems like they are beyond reach now. Especially after announcing that horse game.

  • SHAKIRALOVER

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:07 pm PT

    TDU patch anyone?
    They deserve the loss... for releasing TDU beta as a retail game for PC.

  • dmish82

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 12:05 pm PT

    Hopefully 2600 sales will pick up to compensate for their loss, but it's hard to compete against these next-gen systems.

  • JimmyCos

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:59 am PT

    rollercoaster tycoon 3 was cool..

    driver 3...lol

  • DrKill09

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:56 am PT

    Good. DIE, ATARI! Or should I say "Infogrames!"

    This company has released nothing but crap (only a few exceptions), and has ruined many franchises.

  • Duckers923

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:46 am PT

    how do you expect atari to make money when there games are awful

  • lamprey263

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:43 am PT

    Does Atari even have anything to do with development these days? And as publishers, they don't seem to be doing a good job of getting the word out there for games except a few advertisements in game magazines. And as far as I know, they don't produce hit games for 4th quarter release to get a Xmas sales boost (which general account for half the game industry sales). Besides, they dabble in a bit of everything, which really makes it hard for them to get a name for themselves. If they generally stuck with 1 or 2 genres of games then people would know what to expect from them.

  • OmegaBob

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:33 am PT

    To all those thinking that this is the same Atari from the 80's... it is not. Infogrames purchased the assets of that Atari and then rebranded themselves under that moniker

  • rm304

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:24 am PT

    If they worried more about origanlity instead of profi they wouldn't be in this mess. Matrix sucked, Never Winter Nights has been around since AOL first started up, Driver sucked. I can't remember the last decent game from atari besides keystone Kapers....

  • DemolitionBoy27

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:14 am PT

    Atari is the new Acclaim.

  • nth1739

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:03 am PT

    Blazer is correct Atari fell well before Nintendo enteredt the fray. In fact Nintendo had to convince retailers to carry their system after the Atari tanked so badly. By 1983 Atari only had 13% of the video game market share. Nintendo was not released until 1985 in the US. I still have my NES under my bed somewhere and it still works! Now that is quality.

  • enoslives7

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 11:02 am PT

    Hah !! You people just wait ! The Atari 7800 is gonna make a furious comeback and dominate the likes of Sony and Nintendo.

  • Blazer88

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:59 am PT

    You do huh? Nintendo and Atari didn't really battle much. The game ET was released years before the NES came out so your memory seems a little shakey. I mean Atari was still around when the NES came out but wasn't a contender.

  • elite_ferns1

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:49 am PT

    I remember when atari fought nintendo like xbox fought PS2. Their games were so inventive back then. Then everything went to the dogs after th ET game.

  • LordelX

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:46 am PT

    The Atari name is synominus with terrible quality. Time to put it to rest.

  • Beefcake5000

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:44 am PT

    good it will teach them a lesson. They have 2 learn to make quality games or else this will happen

  • F1sTDaCuffS

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:30 am PT

    well i just went to there website, no wonder there going down the drain, there headquarters is in France.

  • ---n00b_kid---

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:26 am PT

    Driver sequals and Matrix games blew horribly rofl so you lose $70 mil

  • PS3Compass

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:24 am PT

    I think this is the end for poor old Atari...

  • F1sTDaCuffS

    Posted Jul 3, 2007 10:21 am PT

    70 million, they could have bought midway. its obvious that atari and midway are just not in touch with gamers. between them two and mejaesco, i could have made better games. give me the money

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