Namco Bandai Partners S.A.S. (formerly Distribution Partners SAS) was a video game distribution company that was an amalgamation of several former

Atari SA Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. Be ...

(formerly known as Infogrames Entertainment SA) offices located in

PAL territories The PAL region is a television publication territory that covers most of Europe and Africa, alongside parts of Asia, South America and Oceania. It is named PAL because of the PAL (Phase Alternating Line) television standard traditionally used in ...

, which were acquired beginning in 2009 by

Bandai Namco Holdings also known as the Bandai Namco Group and generally Bandai Namco, is a Japanese multinational holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, formed from the merger of Bandai and Namco on S ...

History

Atari and

Namco was a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Na ...

had long maintained a cross-publishing relationship that can be traced back to the very origins of Namco, and Atari's liquidation of regional assets was a natural opportunity for Namco Bandai to gain a PAL distribution network. On September 9, 2008,

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. Bec ...

and Namco Bandai Games Europe announced a new joint-venture known as Distribution Partners. The distribution arms of both businesses were regrouped into a standalone entity with exclusive physical packaged-goods distribution rights for video games produced by Namco Bandai and Infogrames within Infogrames European and Asian territories. Along the way, Namco Bandai's parent company acquired a 34% stake in Atari's European and Asian businesses. The acquisitions came on the heels of Infogrames and Atari's financial difficulties, which had begun to snowball in 2006. The venture would trade worldwide, excluding North America and Japan. On March 25, 2009, Atari announced they would leave the European and Asian markets and sell off their 66% stake in Distribution Partners within the next four months to Namco Bandai Games, although they would still retain a five-year distribution deal in the venture. This move was done so Atari could focus on the MMO market. The purchase was completed on July 7, and Distribution Partners was renamed Namco Bandai Partners in immediate effect, alongside all of Atari's European and Australian distribution subsidiaries being renamed under the Namco Bandai Partners umbrella as well. Because of the existing distribute deal planned beforehand, Namco Bandai Partners would continue to distribute Atari's games, which included titles such as ''

Champions Online ''Champions Online'' is a free-to-play superhero-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game ( MMORPG) developed by Cryptic Studios. The game is based on the ''Champions'' license and its rules and setting are loosely based on the HERO ...

''. and also distribute titles from other publishers, such as ''

Cities XL ''Cities XL'' (originally ''Cities Unlimited'') is a city-building video game developed by Monte Cristo as a sequel to their earlier title '' City Life''. It was originally scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2009, but was eventually r ...

'' from Monte Cristo. On April 16, 2010, it was announced that the company had signed an agreement deal with

Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...

to allow them to distribute and publish the game ''

Demon's Souls is a 2009 action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware for the PlayStation 3 under the supervision of Japan Studio. It was published in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment in February, in North America by Atlus USA in October, and in PAL ...

'' for PAL-region territories. This followed news after Sony's European publishing division and

Atlus is a Japanese video game developer, publisher, arcade manufacturer and distribution company based in Tokyo. A subsidiary of Sega, the company is known for video game series such as ''Megami Tensei'', ''Persona'', ''Etrian Odyssey'' and ''Trau ...

, who published the game in North America, made announcements that they had no plans to bring the title over to PAL-regions. On 1 July 2013, Namco Bandai Partners merged its operations with Namco Bandai Games Europe, with the latter now handling distribution of games through both Europe and Australia. This was done out of the parent company's desire in merging its publishing and distribution divisions together to help unify the Namco Bandai brand.

Titles

References

External links

* {{Bandai Namco Holdings Video game companies established in 2009 Video game companies disestablished in 2013 Atari Defunct video game companies of France Former Bandai Namco Holdings subsidiaries