Atari Out Of Europe

MCV has the story on Atari's transition out of the European market, at least as a brand. Atari's European operation is primarily sales and marketing, and the report is that Namco Bandai will be picking up the business, now known as Distribution Partners. The company will deal with Namco Bandai's products in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and Asia.

This probably explains the recent Sony move with the European releases of Ghostbusters. Under that deal, SCEE will publish the PlayStation 3, PSP, and PS2 versions of the game over there, while anyone looking for the game on DS, Wii, or 360 will have to wait until later in the year. The original news made it sound like Atari would still handle those versions when the time came, but by the time those versions are released, there won't be an Atari in that region to publish them. Kotaku is reporting that Distribution Partners will handle the non-Sony versions of the game. Those versions are still set to hit Europe at some point later this year.

In other words, still a bummer if you're looking to play Ghostbusters on a European Wii, DS, or Xbox 360 anytime soon.