Shares in Atari stock tumbled in the U.S. after the company said ...

would be lower than expected. Saying it had sold “more than 12 million units worldwide” of DRIV3R’s predecessors -- Driver and Driver 2 -- Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell said “we believe that this additional time” before the new game’s release “will give our marketing team the ability to exploit DRIV3R’s full potential.” The company said “based on a preliminary review of results from holiday sales,” it expected to report sales of $190 million and a profit of $20.5-$22.5 million (17-19? per share), down from the $215-$235 million in sales and profit of $28-$36 million (23-30?) it had predicted in Nov. Atari said it also was “revising its full-year fiscal 2004 results, based upon a number of factors, including preliminary holiday sales information and the shift of DRIV3R into the fiscal 2005 first quarter.” As a result, it said it now expected to report sales of $460-$470 million, and “breakeven” earnings before a $39.4 million one-time noncash dividend relating to its Sept. 2003 recapitalization and public offering. Including the dividend, Atari said it expected a 40? loss per share based on generally accepted accounting principles. Atari originally had estimated it would report sales of $560-$590 million and a profit of $35-$45 million (36-46?) for the year before the one-time noncash dividend. Bonnell said: “The strong performance of franchises such as Dragon Ball Z combined with a solid start for several of our holiday releases was unfortunately not enough to offset the underperforming consumer acceptance of other titles in our holiday lineup. While we are disappointed that our financial performance is below our expectations, we remain optimistic that, prior to the dividend, we will report breakeven full-year net income results on the strength of several new titles, including Unreal Tournament 2004 for the PC and Unreal 2: The Awakening for Xbox, Trivial Pursuit: Unhinged on PlayStation 2 and Xbox and Backyard Baseball 2005 featuring Alex Rodriguez on PlayStation 2.” He said: “Fiscal 2005 will now include DRIV3R and several exciting new properties such as Transformers, Shadow Ops, Duel Masters and Sid Meier’s Pirates, which will join a roster that will also feature new titles from our Dragon Ball Z, Dungeon & Dragons, Terminator and Backyard Sports franchises. It is a compelling release slate.” The company said it would announce its 3rd-quarter results Feb. 2 after the close of regular trading. Separately, Oracle said Wed. that Atari was “integrating its customer relationship management business processes directly with its supply chain management operations using Oracle applications.” Also, earlier this month, Games Inc. said it signed a deal with Atari to buy the www.Games.com domain name and certain related assets from the publisher for $1.13 million in cash and stock. As part of that deal, Games said it would acquire digital licenses and sublicenses to popular titles including “classic Atari games,” Battleship, Boggle, Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble and Yahtzee. Games plans to relaunch an upgraded version of the Web site this spring, it said.