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Phil Harrison now president of Infogrames

Posted Mar 3, 2008 at 2:44PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Tags: Atari, Eden Studios, Infogrames, Phil Harrison, SCEI, Sony

Sitting right beside newly appointed CEO David Gardner, ex-SCEI president Phil Harrison took the seat of president at Infogrames after officially parting ways from Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios last week - albeit with a bitter note. Now in league with the parent company of the slowly progressing Atari, Harrison's arrival seemed to have breathed new life and hope for the company.

Harrison was reported to have arrived in Atari's headquarters early in preparations for his new duties, and he additionally cited his own visions and goals that he wished the company would pursue. Of course, they revolved around the pursuit of casual and family games development - an idea that Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEJ) rarely listened to. Harrison said:

This is the perfect time to join Infogrames and help shape the future of Atari - one of the industry's legendary brands. As the game business moves rapidly online I believe we have an outstanding opportunity to create amazing network game and community experiences for players the world over.

And it appears that Infogrames is more than willing to realize Harrison's vision. Gardner himself said that Infogrames will be refocusing its energies and resources to become an industry leader in the online gaming market.

Even the boss of Eden Games (formerly known as Eden Studios), renowned for its role-playing game line-up and responsible for developing Atari's Alone in the Dark 5, is impressed.

"I don't know Phil very well, but what I know about his job and what he's done in the past, he has very strong feelings about games and where the industry should go," said David Nadal, current head honcho at Eden Games. He even said that Harrison's constant promotion of EyeToy, Buzz, and SingStar soon served as inspiration to them - perhaps even as far to encourage Eden to innovate their own games just as well.

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The only game I know of that they make is Civilization, which is a pretty good game even though it seems like it tries to make me learn. I'm probably going to get the PS3 version. Civilization, like The Sims, is one of those games that seems to reach out to a broader group of people. Maybe Phil's going to be able to turn that gaming franchise into something amazing, like some sorta MMO-civilization-casual gaming hybrid explosion.

# Wow — Dustball 2008-03-03 17:01

Either you're an idiot or you just didn't bother to read the article because it clearly states that he resigned.

# . — Naroon Kasui 2008-03-03 17:03

Didn't you read? He left, didn't get fired. It was in the first few sentences. He got pissed with Sony Japan because they denied his ideas of social gaming (where his games were widely accepted in North America and Europe).

Then the Wii came and Sony Japan realized their mistake, but he left anyway.

# ....... — Kingofdaberbz 2008-03-03 17:56

Sony prob asked him to politely resign.In other words he couldn't stay there.There would be no resign to leave Sony for less pay to a company on the verge of failure.That makes no sense whatsoever.He probably did resign, at Sony's request.

# and — Quixand 2008-03-03 18:30

you are basing that on????

# @Quixand — Kingofdaberbz 2008-03-03 19:22

Come on,who in their right mind would a Job at one of the biggest companies in the world to work at a company on the verge of bankruptcy.That's the biggest downgrade I ever seen.Sony probably asked him to resign because of his failures in America.That makes the most sense.It's like being a CEO at Olive Garden,then u say u retired to work at Mcdonald's.It's obvious he was asked to resign oh well.

# WHAT? — Naroon Kasui 2008-03-03 22:21

Failures in America? WHAT failures? Didn't you read ANYTHING? He was tired of his products being failures in Japan, or not being released altogether over there because Sony Japan rejected his ideas of social gaming.

No company will "ask someone" to "politely resign". Did you see his comments he made? Do you call that polite?

Singstar, the Eyetoy, etc. were big successes in North America.

Read the article next time, smart one.

# That Doesn't Mean He's Making Less — CHUCKINGROCKSATSPACESHIPS 2008-03-04 00:35

Just because he left Sony that doesn't mean he is making less. I personally have experienced getting job offers from larger companies than the one I work for with the same duties but for less pay. Of course I said no because I like where I work and the pay is pretty good. You must be a kid or something to just assume such things.

# ~~ — ~~ 2008-03-04 02:02

You should know, however, that not every detail is revealed to the media by corporations and that not everything being released to the public is actually the truth.

Sony could have offered him to resign to let him keep his 'dignity', this could have happened as you don't know what exactly went 'down'.

Just because the media says A you shouldn't discuont B as a fairytale.

I don't think we ever heard of the bribe that was paid to get universal ( or some other company ) on HD-DVD's camp. Can't quite remember either party saying: We recieved / paid ? amount of dollars to go HDDVD.

Company's give a different spin to situations and distort stories to make themselves look good all the time. There are people getting paid to do so.

I don't know all the details of Phil's resignment, but don't discount Kingofdaberbz theory as a unpossibility, because it is not. I think...

# Winner! — Guest 2008-03-04 12:36

That made QJ's day!

# Hurts Sony - Hurts Harrison — damonous 2008-03-04 12:42

While I don't think it's a benefit to Sony that Harrison is out, I certainly don't think it's a benefit to Harrison that he's with Atari. I absolutely agree with Kingofdaberbz that something's up. That's a real loser move if he really did intentionally move over to Atari. Online games or not, it's not that big a deal to blow a gasket over. So Sony Japan doesn't think they should do online over there? --Whoopie Doo. Sony USA still does, and that had to be where the real fun was in his job. Too many people anymore drinking the KoolAid that we're all "one world" and should exactly like the same things every single place in the universe.

# @~~ & damonous — Kingofdaberbz 2008-03-04 13:37

I agree that was my point.If ipod sales started declining and Steve Jobs said he's retiring to work for Creative that wouldn't make any sense.Same with thing if I had such a high

paying and well respected job as this I wouldn't demote myself and work for a struggling company on the verge of bankruptcy. Well not willfully pf course.He worked there for over 15yrs there's noway Sony would fire him like a dog and publicize that.It wouldn't happen, they would ask him to gracefully resign.

# :) — Tapp 2008-03-12 04:21

Long live president whats his face hip hip hooray!

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Phil Harrison now president of Infogrames

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