Why...?

If you don’t know yet, Phil Harrison, one of the most powerful men under Sony Computer Entertainment for 16 years, even before SCE officially came together, resigned from Sony a week ago for untold reasons. Then, it was rumored that Harrison may potentially work at Atari, which since the early days of gaming, been in a steady decline. Today, this rumor was proven true. To give you business figures on Atari’s slide towards nonexistance, it fell 13% with losses of $300,000, and currently faces a delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. In one quarter.

At Atari, Harrison will report to David Garner, Infograme’s new CEO (Infograme is a parent company to Atari), who issued this statement:


     "I am pleased to welcome Phil to Infogrames.He has an outstanding reputation in the industry, as one of the key leaders behind the success of PlayStation. We have been seeking an opportunity to work together for some time and I am certain he will be able to make a significant contribution to [Atari’s] publishing strategy."


It seems as if Phil is happy with where he is at as well. Here is what he had to say upon induction:


     "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."


So. This just leaves a few unanswered questions. Why, would a man with such a reputation at Sony, suddenly decide to leave and work for one of the fastest dying game publishers in the world? And why is he still smiling??