Atari To Distribute Rising Star In Europe

Infogrames subsidiary Atari and Rising Star Games have announced a deal which will see Atari distributing multiple handheld and console titles from Rising Star Games in Europe. Rising Star, itself a publishing label, is a joint venture between Japanese publisher Marvelous Interactive Inc. (publisher of the Harvest Moon series in Japan) and long-standing European Nintendo distributor Bergsala AB. Rising Star's mission is to bring the very best Japanese titles to PAL territories worldwide, including Europe and Australasia, and had originally planned to release its initial titles earlier in 2005. Martin Defries, Chief Operations Officer, Rising Star Games, commented with regard to this announcement: "There is significant amount of high quality and popular Japanese video game software that the European and other PAL markets have long since demanded, and will now be able to enjoy as a result of our cooperation in bringing these titles to market." The first wave of releases resulting from the deal include titles for Sony's PSP handheld, the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2, including a number of Taito-related products such as Space Invaders: Evolution for PSP, versions of Bubble Bobble for both PSP and DS, as well as the recently announced DS title Rainbow Islands: Revolution, plus original PlayStation 2 hack and slash adventure Swords of Destiny from Blinx creator Artoon.