Atari in financial straits once again

It's a common theme in industry news recently: publishers are taking a hit where it hurts during this console transition period. For Atari (also known as its parent company Infogrames), things are looking as bad as when, well, the old Atari was still around.
Okay, maybe not that bad... yet.

Possibly losing an important source of credit–after really losing $63 million in the last nine months of 2005 and defaulting on a loan–is not a good thing for a company whose top sellers were licensed titles and
retro gaming devices.
Bruno Bonnell made a Majesco-esque
proclamation, however, of the company's desire to improve its portable marketshare on the DS and PSP, which we hope will only help the company eventually pull things together.

If Atari doesn't shape up soon, it could literally become a shell of
its former self (with analyst downgrades of its stock not helping one bit). Maybe that movie adaptation of PONG will help just a little. (And, yes, that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.) At any rate, read the full press release here.
A subscriber-limited story on The Wall Street Journal Online also goes more into the company's current difficulties [via Engadget].

[Image taken from
mondo tees]