Phil Harrison is no Peter Moore. He’s the quiet type who prefers to stay behind the scenes rather than show off his GTA 4 tattoo to thousands of attendees at gaming expos. Although, lately he’s been at the top of gaming news as the man who left Sony for the sinking ship known as Atari and left behind the platform he helped to succeed.
Though no specific reasons behind his departure have been indicated Harrison was very vocal at GDC recently publicly criticizing Sony Japan for not taking advantage of the booming casual games market. “It’s a very interesting and frustrating thing for me to experience because I have been banging the drum about social gaming for a long time, with SingStar, EyeToy and Buzz,” stated Harrison. “And our Japanese colleagues said that there is no such thing as social gaming in Japan — people do not play games on the same sofa together in each other’s homes. It will never happen. And then out comes the Wii.”
In a statement released yesterday by Infogrames, owner of the Atari brand, they stated Harrison’s key role in the company would be to “grow the Atari brand into a leading online game company” and be integral in “attracting world-class design and development talent” to the Atari franchise.
On his new position with the failing company Harrison stated “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.”
Let’s hope that Harrison can do for Atari what he did for Sony and revive a dying company from the ashes of former greatness.
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