Atari trims sales, halves losses

It looks like investors may have to go elsewhere to ask the hard questions of Atari, as it has decided not to hold a conference call to discuss its results for the third quarter of the 2008 fiscal year.

The company reported $41.1 million in revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 2007, down 13 percent from the same quarter last year where it reported sales of $47.3 million. Subsequently, net loss for the quarter was $300,000, an improvement on the reported $600,000 net loss from the same period last year. Atari also noted that without restructuring charges of $3.7 million, the company would actually have turned a profit of $3.4 million in the quarter.

The quarterly report also brought word that Atari has run afoul of one of its creditors, BlueBay High Yield Investments. Atari defaulted on part of its agreement with the investment firm, which is also a majority shareholder in Atari's parent company, Infogrames. The publisher is trying to come to a resolution with BlueBay on the matter, but warns that such an outcome can't be guaranteed.

The iconic publisher has suffered a number of blows recently. CEO David Pierce resigned in November after just a year in the post, the publisher is once again in danger of delisting from the NASDAQ market, and the company admitted in an SEC filing that it has "substantial doubt about [its] ability to continue as a going concern."