Phil Harrison no longer president of Atari

By Ellie Gibson Published 29 May, 2009

What will the former Sony man do next?

Phil Harrison is no longer president of Atari, having taken on the role of non-executive director instead.

Harrison joined the company in March last year following a long stint as Sony's very own Dr Manhattan. But Atari has since started focusing on its US business, leaving Namco-Bandai and Sony to handle things in Europe.

"Because of a shift of business operations to the US, Phil Harrison will move from the role of president to that of non-executive director of the group," Atari said in a statement.

"As all board members, he will continue to assist, support and guide the company's strategy,"

The company has also promoted board member Jeff Lapin to chief operating officer of Atari, who will now work with CEO David Gardner in the US to lead the worldwide business.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ChthonicEcho #1 3 years ago

    Fickle, much?

  • Hunam #2 3 years ago

    They really need to figure out how to run a business properly.

  • penhalion #3 3 years ago

    So those magical sales boosts never materialised then. Non-executive director is the same as saying "kept on because we couldn't sack him legally"

  • JohnnyHeaven #4 3 years ago

    he has turned into the mary poppins of gaming. you gotta admit he brought atari back from the fray and now he's setting off to do another good deed, who knows maybe its midway next :-D

  • drumbaby #5 3 years ago

    Can he save 3D Realms?

  • SBfistfun #6 3 years ago

    If they offer a big enough couch he'll not turn the opportunity down

  • GundamJehutyKai #7 3 years ago

    @hunam: so do a lot of other games companies (SEGA, I'm looking at you!!!)

    maybe he'll go back to sony! Prodigal son and all that!!

  • Garulon #8 3 years ago

    "he has turned into the mary poppins of gaming. you gotta admit he brought atari back from the fray "

    Do you mean now they're not even publishing games in Europe any more is a good thing?

    What makes you think Sony'll have him back? They're still working through those "amazing" firstparty projects he started in a similar manner to Susan Boyle working through a curry.

  • Garulon #9 3 years ago

    That was topical but rubbish, I can't even summon the energy to insult Baldy McSlitmouth properly any more, I'm so tired of him. Let him run into a stormy field and the lightning take him.

  • TheTingler #10 3 years ago

    Great, he destroyed Atari Europe entirely and sold off their most exciting game of June (Ghostbusters) to Sony, so what's he going to do next?

    Why, the US too of course!

  • miiiguel #11 3 years ago

    "Non-executive director" = Golden retirement

  • peterfll #12 3 years ago

    Ellie, you're on fine form today my love.. "Sony's very own Dr Manhattan" in the sense of he can grow to the size of a building, and had an incredibly huge - and blue coloured - penis?

  • Sunyavadin #13 3 years ago

    I wonder which company he'll flush down the toilet next?

  • Garulon #14 3 years ago

    (crosses fingers for football-head to "Help" SEGA)

  • HolyJebus #15 3 years ago

    Never liked him. Not too sure why. Smugness perhaps.

  • geeza2020 #16 3 years ago

    wow thats made my day that has

  • Redeye #17 3 years ago

    JohnnyHeaven: "you gotta admit he brought atari back from the fray"

    You are joking, right? Atari are even more forked than ever.

    Sunyavadin: Take your pick - there are plenty of outfits dumb enough to take him on.

  • Les #18 3 years ago

    Never really understood why he wanted to move to Atari anyway. That company has 'failure' written all over it. Maybe he wanted a challenge but keeping Atari alive is a battle nobody can win.

  • El-Dev #19 3 years ago

    Agent Harrison, good work. You can return to base.

  • kangarootoo #20 3 years ago

    Did anyone here really read and understand the article?

    Seems to me that you can't have a company president who doesn't live in the country that that is your main business focus.

    Maybe they asked him if he would move to the US, and he said no, so they changed his role to non-executive status. Why does that perfectly reasonable scenario seem so unlikely?

  • Les #21 3 years ago

    "Seems to me that you can't have a company president who doesn't live in the country that that is your main business focus."

    Shouldn't be a legal problem though it might not be very convenient...

    The president is more or less a ceremonial/consulting function and the same can be said for non-executive director. The real power is with the executive board members.

  • makeamazing #22 3 years ago

    @TheTingler.. Phil has kept the lights running at Atari... you do know before he came along they were basically close to going under? They were also at a stage where they got rid of alot of people and were just trying to go down the casual/anything to publish route... i think they've done quite well under him.

    I dont know if its just cause the guy worked at Sony or have little knowledge of how close Atari were to actually going under that they talk such rubbish.

  • Royal Fool #23 3 years ago

    Atari is on life support at this point. I wouldn't count on the company even surviving into the next year. They even decided not to have a show booth at E3 (i.e. they don't have any money) - I bet Cryptic Studios are really kicking themselves over signing up with Atari in the first place.

  • kangarootoo #24 3 years ago

    @Les

    I didn't mean it was illegal, just that its not good business sense (inconvenient as you put it).

    "The president is more or less a ceremonial/consulting function and the same can be said for non-executive director"

    Naah. Both roles have plenty of actual proper work to do at the vast majority of companies. And most presidents ARE on the executive board (and I imagine Phil was too).

  • smelly #25 3 years ago

    Im suprised infogrames/atari have lasted THIS long to be honest.

    i thought they were gonners about 10 years ago... but they held on

  • JohnnyHeaven #26 3 years ago

    well....ugh i meant financially ugh...speaking umm ... *runs out the room crying*

    it was all a devious plan, leave sony, infiltrate atari and make ghostbusters exclusive bwa ha ha ha ha

  • bad09 #27 3 years ago

    "It probably isn't a coincidence the PS brand started stumbling badly with this twat,"

    Gotta agree there Fap. Indeed wookie Harrison is apparently responsible for Home....

  • Garulon #28 3 years ago

    "i thought they were gonners about 10 years ago... but they held on"

    No, they dies. Some hard disk company (JTS? JTC?) bought them and asset stripped them. Infogrames (Purple Saturn Day, Captain Blood, that aweseme zombie game) bought the name. They bought the Curse of Atari as well, apparently.

  • Les #29 3 years ago

    "Naah. Both roles have plenty of actual proper work to do at the vast majority of companies. And most presidents ARE on the executive board (and I imagine Phil was too)."

    From wiki: "A non-executive director (NED, also NXD) or outside director is a member of the board of directors of a company who does not form part of the executive management team. He or she is not an employee of the company or affiliated with it in any other way. They are differentiated from inside directors, who are members of the board also serving as executive managers of the company (most often as corporate officers)."

    The president is the chairman of the board but in many (most) cases not part of the executive board (in the sense that he/she is not an executive director who manages the day to day business of the company). He/she often monitors the executive board and has a more strategic role (e.g. fostering alliances, setting the strategy). Sometimes the role of president and CEO are combined but it's questionable in the post SOX world whether that's a desirable situation...

    :)

  • kangarootoo #30 3 years ago

    @Les

    Wikipedia 1, kangarootoo 0

    :)