Heh, what do you know, so the stupefying rumour was true, after all. Phil Harrison, the former president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, has exchanged one presidency for another, like a dirty pair of corporate socks. Very, very expensive socks... As announced last night by Atari's parent company from France, Phil has become the new President and Directeur Général Délégué of Infogrames Entertainment (thank God for copy-pasting, those accents are killers), while also joining the company's Board of Directors.

The genuinely surprising move follows shortly after the appointment of David Gardner (ex-EA executive) as CEO of Infogrames, and now the two white-collared buddies are promising to "form the basis of a transformational leadership team at Infogrames that will grow the Atari brand into a leading online game company". Phil's daily duties will range from "reinforcing [Infogrames'] franchise portfolio of products, developing its new packaged and online games, and strengthening its internal and external studio capability through attracting world-class design and development talent to the organisation". Sounds like... umm... fun. So how does Phil feel about all this?

"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. I am especially excited to be working on this challenge together with David, one of the most respected leaders and successful executives in our industry."

The high-rank reshufflings continued at Infogrames and Atari today, but I won't bother mentioning any of the other names, since you'll likely forget them by tomorrow, anyway. The important thing is they got Phil. Now all they need is $1 billion to make their "leading online game company" dream come true.

Tags:  Atari, Sony Computer Entertainment