Namco Bandai Buying Atari’s European Business

imageOnce a video games pioneer, now Atari is a company in decline as Japanese games publisher Namco Bandai moves to complete a takeover of its European operations. MCV reports that Atari Europe’s sales and marketing staff will be transferred to a new business, Distribution Partners, which will exclusively handle Atari’s games outside the US until 2014. Namco Bandai bought a 34 percent stake in Atari Europe in March 2008 and according to MCV will move to buy up the rest of the shares in the coming weeks from Atari’s French-based parent company Infogrames. But it’s not a total retreat from Europe: the company will retain a London studio which opened in September last year. Atari already sells Namco Bandai games under license in Europe such as Family Ski and Snowbaord for the Nintendo Wii.

Given the on-going boom in European video game sales, Namco Bandai sees an opportunity to expand and is expected to increase the company’s headcount in the UK and across Europe. Atari’s UK marketing chief David Miller said this week:

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