Atari gets delisted by Nasdaq
Atari, which has gone from a once high-flying video game company to little more than a placeholder brand name owned by another company, announced Thursday that it has been delisted by Nasdaq.
The company, which is now fully owned by games publisher Infogrames, said in a statement that it received a letter on May 7 from Nasdaq "stating that a Nasdaq listing qualifications panel has determined to delist Atari Inc.'s securities from the Nasdaq Global Market and will suspend trading of Atari...shares effective" Friday.
The release also said that Atari plans to appeal the delisting, but that its doing so would not delay the process of having its shares taken off of Nasdaq.
On April 30, Infogrames, which owned 51.4 percent of Atari, announced that it would buy the remaining shares.
All in all, this is an ignominious step in the once-famed Atari's story. In many ways, Atari started the modern video games industry, and in the 1980s it was one of the biggest names in consumer electronics. But over the years, its fortunes fell and more recently, it has been little more than a brand name used by Infogrames.
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Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel.
