Atari facing NASDAQ delisting

Stock exchange serves notice to publisher due to delinquent paperwork.

Atari revealed today that it has been served with a noncompliance notice from NASDAQ and is now subject to delisting. According to the notice, the France-based publisher has not yet filed its annual report on Form 10-K for its 2007 fiscal year. Atari has requested a hearing with the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel to appeal the notice, which will postpone the delisting until the panel has reached a decision.

Unlike its previous NASDAQ delisting quandary, today's notice has nothing to do with its stock price. Atari has stated that its reason for not filing the Form 10-K in a timely manner is because it is "still determining what, if any, accounting entries it needs to make with respect to certain severance matters." Last April, Bruno Bonnell, who cofounded Atari parent company Infogrames Entertainment, vacated his post as chairman of the board, chief creative officer, and acting chief financial officer. In May, the publisher announced it would be serving pink slips to 20 percent of its workforce. The layoffs were then projected to be concluded by the end of July.

97 Comments

  • thesineater

    Posted Jul 24, 2007 5:04 am PT

    And once again for those that don't understand the problem behind the Atari name. It does not matter that this is not the " old Atari " company. The Atari name has been synonymous with crap games for at least 2 decades. There has also been no innovation from the Atari company since it was created in the '70's and made the first sucessful console. So those of you that feel it is necessary to remind everyone that Atari is not the same company it used to be years ago, please just stop. The Atari brand name period is not worth a penny as of yesteryear, today and probably forever, no matter who owns them.

  • AvIdGaMeR444

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 1:50 pm PT

    Atari just needs to go altogether...vanish. Sure, the 1st Driver game was good, but WTF other games are worthy for the last few years? Nothing. Bullet Witch was terrible. Driver 3 was terrible. They publish some really bad games. Atari is notorious for bad decision making, and that is the reason they had to leave the console business. Now they may not even survive as a publisher. Atari has been lame for a long time now, and this latest article is no surprise to me.

  • Singletrac

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 11:47 am PT

    HEY DUMMIES. THIS ISNT THE SAME ATARI FROM BACK THEN. THIS COMPANY IS INFOGRAMES. THEY JUST BOUGHT THE NAME AND LOGO OF ATARI WHEN THEY WENT BANKRUPT A LONG TIME AGO. This has nothing to do with the old Atari, they've been long gone. The more you know.

  • StonyShred420

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 10:14 am PT

    How i miss my old Atari back when i was like 4 years old, but plain and simple...thing Atari makes these days just don't live up to the competition.

  • bossjimbob

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 9:59 am PT

    ATAR=loser stock

  • Darth_Slayer

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 8:43 am PT

    The current Atari is still legally known as Infogrames, a French company that bought GT Interactive a while back. The rename was simply to marketing decision.

    And don't bash the old Atari if you never lived in that age. The 2600 was a landmark in consoles, and its games are revolutionary even by today's standards. One of the first 3D games was on Atari, and its games proved that a game don't need flashy graphics to be fun, and the Atari Jaguar color handheld predates the Gameboy Color by nearly a decade. Back in the days of the Atari the average gamer actually know how to create homebrew games, but sadly this all ended with Nintendo, which pushed mass marketed, graphically appeasing titles over innovation.

  • Hawk456

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 8:28 am PT

    You mean to say that struggling Atari, which has been on the verge of being delisted for about 2 years has been delisted... shocker. Delist them, let them trade on pink sheets, bring them into Chapter 11 bankruptcy eventually, sell of their assets and let a combination of EA and private equity buy the Atari brands.

  • Goredriver

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 7:58 am PT

    If you've kept up with Atari's finances, you'd have long since noticed the fiscal Q4 2007 report is overdue, due to their goodwill impairment charge (which is a legit accounting term, by the way) and some overlooked tax ramifications for the past year that they noticed at the last possible moment they will be able to adjust in their favor.

    Everyone has obviously been aware of the situation for the past 2 months, but Atari is still finishing up their paperwork. The delisting notice is just a formality in this case, a rule to require publicly traded companies to show their status every quarter. Atari wants to show Q4, it just isn't finished with their ammending it. BTW, now is a good time to buy Atari, if you can let it ride for 2+ years.

  • elite_ferns1

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 7:56 am PT

    Atari was the king of gaming, untill they made bad game that lead to the Video game crash. Atari died a long time ago and betrayed to legion of fans it had. I say good ridens; MS, sony, and nintendo, don't make the same mistake atari did. The future of cansole gaming is in your hands.

  • iMacBot

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 7:53 am PT

    NASDAQ is controlled by bureaucrats!

  • piano_lord92

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 7:13 am PT

    I agree with you, angelGP32. Atari was much more popular back then, it was a bigger deal then compared to now. Although the gaming world WILL suffer at least a bit if Atari goes bye-bye.

    As for your comment, vbc_bt, I agree. I want Atari to stay around at least until they can produce RCT4, because 3 is so screwed up (it's a great game but there's a ton of software issues) and a lot of people are waiting for the fourth.

  • angelGP32

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 6:43 am PT

    This is not the same Atari that people like me grew up with. That Atari died a long time ago, before the Jaguar. So to see them go down now is no big deal as they've been dead to true Atari fans for quite some time now.

  • Unholy_Smite

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 1:55 am PT

    Too bad, I always was hoping atari would make a comeback. But that is not to be, you were good while you lasted atari. What will happen to the dragonball Z games if atari does indeed go?

    FYI, Atari is american not french. It is based in New York.

  • CookiesCream

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 1:33 am PT

    delisting a major games developer can have large economic repercussions...

  • PSLinux

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 1:16 am PT

    r.i.p. Atari

  • nazraq

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 11:56 pm PT

    i'm not sure what makes raystorm think the jaguar was a fine piece of hardware. i bought one by trading my genesis, sega cd, and 32x. all i got was a system that played two good games. alien vs predator and iron soldier were the only reasons i have fond memories of the jaguar. i was mad to find out that it wasn't a true 64 bit machine. it had two 32 bit processors. the truth is, i'd rather think of atari in a good way. now, it's just part of the past.

  • Devvy01

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 10:38 pm PT

    Isn't this just typical, big boss leaves, rapes the company for its money because of the contractical agreements and so the poor worker who actually DOES all the work gets fired. Sounds like 80% of companies these days

  • raystorm9000

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 8:41 pm PT

    As an old fan of classic Atari, its a tad bit disturbing to have to relive ANOTHER Atari collapse. Granted this isn't the "Real Atari" , but the reality is the name has changed hands several times over the past couple of decades. The 1996 demise of the Jaguar era was a sad thing to experience. While its always been popular in certain circles to bash Atari(and god knows the tramiels deserve some good bashing) but the truth is Atari did some good stuff which is seldom recognized beyond just the 2600 days. The Atari Lynx,St and Jaguar were all fine pieces of hardware and home to some great and quirky titles, the type of stuff you just don't see too much of these days. They were not hugely succesful(well, except for the ST in Europe) but they certainly had character they were like the indie films of the console scene. I wish the old Atari was still around, but this is not it. all that this current incarnation of Atari seems to do is give fuel to the fire of Atari bashers and further obscure and dilute the contributions made by the real Atari.

  • Neo_Sarevok

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 8:01 pm PT

    I have a lot of fond memories of Atari. It's just a shame those memories mainly consist of corrupting "The Matrix" franchise. Now we'll never see another Matrix game again. Why Atari, why!?!

  • MotorQ

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 6:37 pm PT

    Test Drive Unlimited still rocks!

  • -HCMF-

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 6:32 pm PT

  • Diernes

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 5:38 pm PT

    Atari definately needs to perish. They are ruining good D&D games because of their incompitance, Die already and give the licenses to a decent publisher

  • NeoNavarro

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 5:31 pm PT

    Atari needs to get on the ball and gets it's act togeather. It's sad that Atari must fire 20 percent of it's work force because of it's own incompitance.

  • living_wmd_888

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 5:17 pm PT

    Atari's classic properties should have just been sold off to Namco or Midway or some similar publisher. Infogrames started using the Atari name to shill licensed games without realizing that nobody cares about Atari anymore.

  • link631

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 5:15 pm PT

    wtf atari isn't dead? its old stuff! die

  • Romanticide

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 3:36 pm PT

    lol Atari need to die.

  • vbc_bt

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 2:12 pm PT

    I just hope they decide to settle their lawsuit with Chris Sawyer and sell the IP for Rollercoaster Tycoon to a publisher and/or developer who can produce RCT4. Aside from the one IP, Atari has nothing that interests me at all.

  • ghsacidman

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 1:35 pm PT

    I guess this is what happens when you buy a popular gaming franchises name and then use it to sell crappy liscensed games.

  • Ryowolf

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 1:14 pm PT

    I agree with Cerza

    BTW, it's not even the same Atari we know and love. Thats right, they bought the name from the old company to profit of their fame. It's a completely different team. It's a marketing strategy to tricks idiots like yourselves!

  • queenfan66

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 12:02 pm PT

    they had to rush et, if they didnt then none of this would have happened!

  • malmeid2

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 10:26 am PT

    ATARI 5200 EFF-TEE-DOUBLE-YU

  • Cerza

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 9:19 am PT

    Atari has been done for a long, long, long time. I am not surprised by this at all.

  • Demmi_Argo

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 8:50 am PT

    Apparently Atari has been cursed since the failure of the Jaguar. The only games I own that came from them are the Budokai Tenkaichi games which for some reason remind me of my old Dreamcast games. I think its important that no matter how pathetic it may be its important to keep Atari in the buisness, they started everything and they should stay in the videogame buisiness.

  • The_Weekend

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 8:32 am PT

    Atari = failure from the past .... what more postive can people think?

  • mattybonner2

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 7:11 am PT

    this was evitable

  • grarap

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 2:46 am PT

    Can the snobs here please stop reliterating the history of the oid Atari Corp and how this debacle is further proof of the failures of the company? This is the 'new' atari, which doesnt have a thing to do with the creator of the 2600. The oid atari declared bankruptcy just after the fall of the jaguar I think.

  • Hardcoreforever

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 1:20 am PT

    And im still waiting for a sequel to Tank on the 2600.................and whatever happened to games like riveraid?!

  • Lord_Bafford

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 11:31 pm PT

    soon to be end of Atari, for good?

  • dynomitemasta

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 9:26 pm PT

    Ok great, just don't screw up "Alone in the Dark" I'm looking forward to that one.

  • HighlyToxic

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 8:32 pm PT

    Atari. Too bad all their creativity went into their accounting.

  • Jebril

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 6:47 pm PT

    Every game they've touched has been ash....

  • zintarr

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 6:47 pm PT

    Translation = The expansion for NWN2 is going to be rushed out the door even faster than NWN2 was. So the expansion will be a buggy pile of crap. This blows

  • Lordofultima

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 6:38 pm PT

    So I take it this means no Jaguar II? Maaann.

  • TransAmSD455

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 5:53 pm PT

    the new Atari was doing decent until around 04

  • hbxclo

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 5:26 pm PT

    Getting delisted doesn't imply the company is dead

  • Spartan1017

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 3:18 pm PT

    they haven't lasted this long, the atari we know today is not the original atari, they when bankrupt along time ago.
    today's atari is just its namesake.

  • chubhold

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 3:08 pm PT

    poor atari.

    then again, how have they lasted this long?

  • luckjon

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 1:47 pm PT

    All they need to do is release Freespace 3 and they would be back in the green.

  • imnotacrook

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 12:18 pm PT

    Take this clip from Wikipedia's Article about Atari Jaguar and you probably see why Atari is having the problems its having: By the end of 1995, after the entrance of the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn, the Jaguar's fate was all but sealed. In an interview,[2] Sam Tramiel, CEO of Atari, touted that the Jaguar was much more powerful than the Saturn and slightly weaker than the PlayStation. He also predicted the price of the PlayStation to be $500 and said that any price from $250 to $300 would be price dumping and that Atari would sue to block sales (they never did). His comments were selected as #3 in GameSpy's Top 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming.

    Maybe sum sort of last ditch effort at a console where they go back to basics of the Atari 2600 and go from there but right now they need to stop from being made "completely" irreverent.

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