Former Sony exec, Phil Harrison, joins Infogrames

A little over a week ago, former long-time SCE worldwide executive Phil Harrison, announced his resignation from the company he helped bring up, and today, he has announced he will be hoping to right a new ship.

After a week of speculation, Harrison announced today that he will be officially joining Infogrames, the parent company of the Atari Group. His new position will have him reporting to newly appointed CEO David Gardner, and Harrison will have the position of "Directeur Général Délégué." The company released a statement commenting on the union of two strong figures in gaming saying that the two will, "form the basis of a transformational leadership team at Infogrames that will grow the Atari brand into a leading online game company."

"This is the perfect time to join Infogrames and help shape the future of Atari - one of the industry's legendary brands," Harrison said in the release. "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."

Having extensive experience at Sony, Harrison will oversee the studios and content development for the company and be in charge of boosting the group's publishing activities; he will also have a seat on the company's board of directors.

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What are your thoughts?

  1. Darius_9K

    • 7:55pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    Shame he left Sony, but good luck to him anyways.

  2. Alti | Alti

    • 7:59pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    well, activision wont be wowing him every week like sony did. There's no way. Phil got to see all those insider trailers. Wth is activision going to show him? lol

  3. Lp47PS3 | Lp47

    • 8:11pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    lame, i wish he stayed at Sony.

  4. dfontes1188 | dfontes1188

    • 8:19pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    Hopefully he encourages them to bring some good titles to the PS3.

  5. robbinator | cowkong

    • 8:54pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    I rele hav high hopes for phil, i cant wait to c wat he can do to change the world of gaming. I rele think he will create a good series of games.

  6. encryptioncsta | csta

    • 8:55pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    yeah i hope he does tht lol mean peter moore going to EA oviously done microsoft sum gd but gd luck phil and remember

     

    theres no place like HOME!

  7. Babiloo | XavierHarkonnen

    • 9:18pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    maybe atari will be less crappy in the future, we can only hope

  8. terminator12259 | tacitassassin25

    • 9:29pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    y would he leave one of the biggest companies in the world for atari

  9. Alpha2

    • 9:43pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    Good luck to him. Glad things are working up and who knows maybe this will help Sony in the future.

     

    Most likely Atari offered him a lot more than he was making at sony or offered hima  position where he could have even more control than the had before. Either way it seems he planned it since he was out of work no more than a week.

  10. ladellb

    • 9:52pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    If Phil has his way, he will mold and transform Atari into a highly respected gaming company. He will no double be the key to some new industry standards in the online gaming arena.

  11. shaka | Shaka

    • 10:08pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    I truly love phily my man (no homo).

    best of luck to this big tall mother ******.....

  12. Deusthousand | Deusthousand

    • 10:13pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    Good 2 see him go to legends who need rebuilding. Sony should buy them.

  13. MMDs | MMDs

    • 10:41pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    oh thank god, ATARI needs a man like Harrison to bring them back to life.

  14. mcain44

    • 10:45pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise....He knows the ins and outs of Sony and knows the systems capabilties...so .....perhaps we will get some 3rd party games that actually utilize the system to its fullest.

  15. Redrider | Warhawk1

    • 10:56pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    Good for Phil :).

  16. DnA19

    • 11:13pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    good for phil, wishing him the best at his new position. maybe he can put atari back n the gaming map.

  17. DemonOfRazgriz89 | DemonOfRazgriz07

    • 11:22pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    screw Infogrames, Sony is where he needs to stay... :(

  18. zbamf

    • 11:27pm GMT - March 3rd, 2008

    @mcain

    He knows the industy and how Sony does business but does he know the programming side of the PS3's arcitecture? I doubt he will help Atari get the most from PS3, he's not even working with Atari, he's at Infogrames doing business stuff.

    I liked Phil, he was the only one who didn't sound like a robot at keynotes unlike Microsoft's. But he has gone down the career ladder, maybe the pressure of running all of Sony gaming worldwide studios was too much. Now Kaz has to run all that and is also the head of SCE, good look to that Kaz.

  19. dccr1234 | suicidfreakdance

    • 12:22am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    i dont know if you guys see it comin but, with home realesing soon and phill  goin to Ataris "infogrames", i have a feeling he will bring bad titles exlusive to the ps3 and HOME, i got my money on that, just wait and see.....OR microsoft will be willing to pay big bucks for thouse games, like they did with the stupid gta4 epicodic content, cuz now i herd that tha ps3 is going to get some special treament as well.......but we will see soon enuff

  20. Uncool | Admodistrator

    • 12:34am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    Conflict of interest and not pushing for certain things to be done made Phil leave. Though I wasn't expecting him to go to infogrames. But I see the relevance nevertheless, be glad he didn't leave the gaming industry altogether.

  21. InfernoReaper | GrimDarkling

    • 12:59am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    Or maybe Sony asked him to resurrect Atari so Sony could buy them and he'd be back at Sony in no time.

  22. IONIXX | IONIXX

    • 2:07am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    yeah i wish he was still t sony, same with ken, oh well, wish them the best, and hope phil helps bring out some great products :)

  23. Syphon_Filter | Syphon_filter2

    • 2:23am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    Shame on him he left Sony, and maybe they will pay him more but i hope he will fail. lool

  24. flameboyNE | flameboyNE

    • 2:54am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    A crazy move! What will he come with at Atari? What online products can we expect to see?!

  25. ProfSebastian

    • 3:37am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    YUUJUUUUU!!! Inforgames (Atari) was one of my favorites company when i was young with the Alone in the Dark series, Time Gate, and Prisioner of Ice among others, the only lovecraftnian videogame company that i know beside "Irrational games".

  26. Die-romantic | Demon_King

    • 4:01am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    Great that Phil Harrison joined Infogrames instead of EA Finally Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 4 online Tourament and epic battles

  27. dj_sup3r1or | sup3r1or

    • 4:03am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    Why they gave him a bigger paycheck than in sony?

  28. slim-jim

    • 4:42am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    maybe this is a good time to buy some shares in atari

  29. VIPER-G1 | VIPER-G1

    • 4:56am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    We will all miss the big guy but he has done really well at Sony. Hopefully this means Phil can get some more games on the PS3 through Infogrames who have been pretty quiet recently really with Alone in the Dark 5 being its real main attraction. Although it's actually being made by partner company Eden Games but its still Infogrames as they own something like 51.2% of Atari. Well they did last time I checked, I wish Phil a good future where he is anyway.

  30. hesmanes | hesmanes

    • 5:23am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    hmmmmm does it not strike anyone as odd? im with infernoreaper on this one, maybe phil actually still works for sony and the whole job thing was just a cover for him to work for infogrames to get content onto the ps3?

  31. VesNL | Ves

    • 5:38am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    @terminator12259

    I don't think he left on his own plus the biggest company may not always be the best (look at EA)

  32. AZURA-DRAGON | Azura-Dragon

    • 6:03am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    i hope he will back to sony

  33. gingo | gingo

    • 11:13am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    psn id: gingo.... well recent titles from atari have ben nothing short of crap so hopefully with phils expertise they can become big again

  34. HAZE

    • 11:21am GMT - March 4th, 2008

    Who knows may be atari are working to bring a new super console in the future

  35. Deldwen | Deldwen1

    • 1:48pm GMT - March 4th, 2008

    he left sony for atari? LOLOLOLOL

    smaart move.

    ah, its okay mabye he wanted somthing a little less scary.

  36. Untildeath89 | willmakenewonesoon

    • 1:51pm GMT - March 4th, 2008

    ms arent the only ones planting eggs on 3d party :D

  37. PS3-The Ultimate Machine

    • 2:39pm GMT - March 4th, 2008

    What can i say?Phil's pretty dumb if he actually resigned from the position he had at Sony,but i do believe he was probably pushed.

  38. psn_frov | frov

    • 6:23pm GMT - March 4th, 2008

    I see exclusives from Atari very soon in the future

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