Phil Harrison Watch: Another Sony Exec Leaps to Atari

Infogrames (using what it calls "its consumer brand, Atari") is not only forming a new Hammersmith, London-based in-house development studio, it's also managed to get Paulina Bozek to head it up.

"Paulina who?" you might ask. Paulina - the Executive Producer and Game Director for the SingStar franchise over at Sony - Bozek, we'd say.

"This is a significant step in expanding Atari's online game development capability," said Phil Harrison, President of Infogrames.

"Phil Who?" you might ask - you'd be daft to, but there you go. Phil Harrison, previously top-man over at Sony's Worldwide Studios, that's who.

Yes, it appears that Harrison has reached into his old place of worked and has plucked Ms Bozek from it.

"Paulina is one of the industry's most respected creative leaders with an outstanding track-record of commercial and creative success and I'm delighted that she will bring her unique vision, consumer insight and proven ability for creating amazing entertainment experiences to Atari", says Phil without using the phrase "going forward", for which we praise him.

Inforgrames/Atari even gives a hint of what Paulina might be looking to do, telling us, "For the past 6 years Paulina has been Executive Producer and Game Director of the multi-award winning SingStar franchise...

"...The most recent version of SingStar on PlayStation 3 incorporates a variety of online innovations including integrated commerce, community and user-generated content services."

Not really a very hidden clue as to what Harrison wants to do with the new division - lets' hope he can do it without the use of poorly executed digital rights management.

Interesting Paulian Bozek factoid: a derivation of the name 'Bozek' is (according to ancestory.com) "Polish and Ukrainian: from bo?zek ‘idol’, ‘pagan divinity’." A pagan divinity at Atari, eh? Superb.