There were already a few signs hinting that Atari was having some trouble holding on to the Dragon Ball franchise. A couple of years ago, the publisher clashed with FUNimation over the game license. Namco Bandai announced last month that it had secured publishing rights to three new entries in the franchise. Today, Namco Bandai has announced that it's finishing what it started.

For the weekend directly leading up to the E3 event, it sure was jampacked with news, wasn't it? If you've been hanging around the industry for a while now, you'd know that the usual occurrence during this time of the year (or whenever there is an event, actually), is to have some kind of drought in news. But no, not this year. Everyone's just as pumped up about the upcoming event, it didn't matter if the news that came out were more on the rumors and speculations and "leaks" side. We don't mind. We know we're in for the big stuff. Are you ready?

Last year, Phil Harrison made quite a ruckus when he severed ties with SCEI as their president, and then jumping on board Atari's team, via parent company Infogrames,  to serve as President. Today, however, we receive word that he will be stepping down from the position, and will assume instead a non-executive Director role.

Wiibrewer raz0red has just whipped up the first release of Wii7800, a port of the ProSystem emulator developed by Greg Stanton. Credits to Zx-81, Leonis, and gdement for their respective contributions. Developer notes in the full article.


Download: Wii7800

This homebrew game is based on the old Atari tank shoot-em-up game Combat. Remade for the Wii by developer spiffen, v0.1 was developed using devkitPro tools, as well as GRRLIB for rendering, sndlib for music and sound, as well as support for the use of Wiimote.


Download: CombatWii v0.1

This is a rather unique position we are in. The E3 is nearing, and yet we've got just about the biggest surge we've had the past couple of months. Okay, that might well be an exaggeration, but still. You gotta agree with me when I say it was a busy past week, yes? Rumors, confirmation of rumors, and surprising - yet at the same time not-so-surprising - NPD results for this month all proved to be the cherry on top for this game-filled, fun-filled week. Hmmm.. imagine all those cherries on top.... Dig in, then.

Two years ago, Atari Europe was fortunately in the safe zone, despite the mother company's grim and disheartening financial report of Q2 2007. Back then, the problem was isolated only to the US offices, and the Atari branch was said to be unharmed by the restructuring overseas. Today, however, Atari Europe is no more, now having been officially acquired by Namco Bandai.

Aww, and I was so gearing up to see some Ghostbusters PSP action in E3! With a sudden turn of events (and to think it's so last minute, with only three weeks left before the actual event), Atari has announced that they're pulling out from this year's gaming event - and no, it's not really because of Swine Flu concerns.

Raz0red's Wii homebrew app Wii2600 is an Atari 2600 emulator based on the open-source Stella 2.7.2. If you're new to the whole Wii homebrew scene, an emulator will basically let you play games made for other systems on your Wii console. In this case, Atari 2600 games. Hit the full version for a list of changes.


Download: Wii2600 v0.2

Funny man and original Ghostbuster Dan Akroyd sat down with Newsweek to give out his piece on the upcoming videogame versions of their hit franchise, The Ghostbusters. Asked which version of The Ghostbusters: The Video Game he preferred, he answers: the Wii.