For the weekend directly leading up to the E3 event, it sure was jampacked with news, wasn't it? If you've been hanging around the industry for a while now, you'd know that the usual occurrence during this time of the year (or whenever there is an event, actually), is to have some kind of drought in news. But no, not this year. Everyone's just as pumped up about the upcoming event, it didn't matter if the news that came out were more on the rumors and speculations and "leaks" side. We don't mind. We know we're in for the big stuff. Are you ready?

Last year, Phil Harrison made quite a ruckus when he severed ties with SCEI as their president, and then jumping on board Atari's team, via parent company Infogrames,  to serve as President. Today, however, we receive word that he will be stepping down from the position, and will assume instead a non-executive Director role.

Atari President Phil Harrison wants to prove Activision wrong for dropping Ghostbusters like a hot potato when it merged with Blizzard, saying he wants to turn the video game into a US$ 100 million franchise. So much for Atari's goal to be "just an online company," and I couldn't be happier for them. Go Harrison!

The end of physical media is nigh! That's according to Phil Harrison, at least. See, he's "pretty confident [kids] will never buy a physical media product" in the future - that's counting CDs, DVDs, games in boxes... Man, could you imagine talking to your future kid? "Err, daddy what's a dee-vee-dee? Daddy, is it a title of an emo song?"

Tetsuya Mizuguchi (of Lumines, Rez fame) just loves our news blog so much that he's decided to name his upcoming game after our site! (Or... not.) Whatever the case, Atari's recent press conference had former Sony bigwig Phil Harrison handle the proceedings. Some of the biggest news they've announced in the event involves Tetsuya Mizuguchi's latest rhythm game and the upcoming Ghostbusters multi-platform title's release window.

Phil Harrison, former Sony exec and current Atari president, said in a keynote speech that most games that fail in development do so because studios rush it through the development process.

And the lesson to gamers is: if you pressure devs to come out with a product too fast, they may end up giving you a sub-standard game.

More wisdom from Harrison after the link.

Atari, one of the oldest companies in the video game business, took an unfortunate turn and fell into a dive that was apparent last year. Now, in what's probably a bid to turn a new leaf, they are now headed in a new direction, and revealed that they will be focusing on online gaming. More in the full article.

Alone in the Dark, Atari's final massive, mainstream videogame project 4 years in the making, will be releasing in less than a month, we're told from a recent interview with Infogrames' head honcho, Phil Harrison. Those who are still tossing dimes deciding whether they'd pick up a copy or not for their PlayStation 3s, Xbox 360s, Wiis, or Windows rigs may love what's coming before that. Atari has plans to release demos for before their version's respective release dates.

Atari held an event for its upcoming video game title, Alone in the Dark (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PC), at Hampstead, London, and as one would expect, oodles of information and videos were let out and shown to the lucky audience. Want to know what they found out? Check it out at the full article.

Phil Harrison, Infogrames' new top boss, was never secretive over his plans to cater games to the new broader market. Alone in the Dark (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox 360) will probably be the last major mainstream title queued up in Atari's arsenal if this was true. Thankfully it's not - well not in entirety. Atari will still be catering to hardcore, but not in the same respects as before. Go to the full story for more.