Atari’s announced its founder Nolan Bushnell has rejoined the company on its board of directors.

Of his return, Bushnell said “The company and its iconic brands have always been important to me, and I look forward to further guiding them at the board level”.

As well as his arrival and that of online entrepreneur Tom Virden onto the board, the move sees ex-president and Sony WWS boss Phil Harrison and former CEO and EA veteran David Gardner fully resign from the company.

After the pair gave up their respective roles following the takeover from Namco Bandai in Europe, they took up seats in the board of directors until yesterday’s announcement.

The firm’s also confirmed to Develop that ex-Singstar designer Paulina Bozek has quit the company: she was head of an online-based studio in London.

She moved to the firm in September 2008, six months after Harrison had resigned from Sony to join Atari.

Thanks, MCV.

“We are obviously very sorry to learn that Paulina will be leaving us,” said a rep.

“She has been a huge part of our family at WWS and London Studio and we wish her all the best with her new challenge.”

The developer has lead the SingStar franchise for years, joining SCEE from Ubi Montreal in 2003.

Bozek will be assuming a role as development director of a new London-based online games studio for Atari.

Update: SCEE just put out a statement on this, saying Bozek will be missed.

Iconic SingStar boss Paulina Bozek has quit Sony to take a job with Phil Harrison’s Infogrames.

Bozek is now development director of a new online game studio at the firm.

“I am very excited to be joining Atari at this pivotal time for both the company and the industry,” said Bozek.

“There is a huge opportunity as gaming platforms become more ubiquitous, more connected and attract more mainstream audiences. Atari has a great vision for the future and I can’t wait to start realising that vision in new products and services.”

Harrison, obviously, is quite pleased.

“This is a significant step in expanding Atari’s online game development capability,” he said.

“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.”

Press release after he break.

INFOGRAMES ANNOUNCES THE APPOINTMENT OF PAULINA BOZEK AS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR OF NEW ONLINE GAME STUDIO

- Award-Winning Game Director Of $500 Million, 15 Million Unit-Selling SingStar® Franchise to Lead New Online Game Development Team at Atari, Based In London -

LONDON, UK – 8 September 2008 – Infogrames Entertainment, under its consumer brand Atari, today announces the formation of a new in-house game development studio under the creative and production leadership of Paulina Bozek, one of the games industry’s most pioneering and successful producers. At Atari, Paulina will apply her outstanding production and development skills to establish a new game development team and studio based in London. The new studio will focus on innovating and developing mass-market consumer games and services for online-enabled devices including Personal Computers and game consoles.

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

“I am very excited to be joining Atari at this pivotal time for both the company and the industry,” said Paulina Bozek. “There is a huge opportunity as gaming platforms become more ubiquitous, more connected and attract more mainstream audiences. Atari has a great vision for the future and I can’t wait to start realising that vision in new products and services.”

For the past 6 years Paulina has been Executive Producer and Game Director of the multi-award winning SingStar franchise on PlayStation®2 and PLAYSTATION®3 at Sony Computer Entertainment’s London Studio. SingStar has achieved combined sales of over 15 Million units and life-time revenue of approximately $500M (measured at retail and online worldwide). The most recent version of SingStar on PLAYSTATION 3 incorporates a variety of online innovations including integrated commerce, community and user-generated content services.

The new Atari studio will initially be located in Hammersmith, west London and will recruit industry-leading technical, creative and production resources, both as in-house employees and externally contracted resources.

About Paulina Bozek:

Paulina started her career in games in 1999 at Ubisoft in Montreal, Canada where she worked with a small team to launch and project manage GameLoft.com, Ubisoft’s then online portal of game services and communities. In 2003, she joined Sony’s London Studio and was appointed as the Producer of SingStar shortly afterwards, over-seeing the production and creative direction of the Franchise. Since its release, the SingStar Franchise has been instrumental in establishing games as popular entertainment for mainstream audiences.

Paulina is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the first ever BAFTA Interactive New Talent Award in 2004. In 2007, she was listed in the Top 10 rising stars of the Media field on the ‘Courvoisier Future 500 List.’ And in 2008 Mangagement Today listed Paulina in its annual list of top ’35 women under 35’ in British Business. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies and an MSc in Media & Communications from the London School of Economics.

About Infogrames Entertainment and Atari:
The Infogrames group, including the Atari brand, is a global producer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment software for all market segments and all interactive game platforms including consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, advanced smartphones, Personal Computers, web and online. Its games are sold in more than 60 countries through an international distribution network and direct to consumers via www.atari.com.

Atari’s extensive catalogue of popular games is based on original franchises (Alone in the Dark, Test Drive, V-Rally, My Horse & Me, Backyard Sports franchise, Total Annihilation, Outcast etc.), publishing properties (The Witcher, Legendary, Race Pro etc.), international licenses (Dragon Ball Z, Dungeons & Dragons, Jamie Oliver etc.) and classic games covering the entire history of the video game industry (Pong, Missile Command, Asteroids etc).

BioWare’s Karen Clark will also be making a speech, as will Karen Brennan (Scratch, MIT), Sara de Freitus (Serious Games) and Eileen Brown (Microsoft).

The event’s being co-hosted by Rare. More details here.

According to PS3F, SingStar producer Paulina Bozek confirmed at the SCEE PlayStation Day last night that a web version of My SingStar Online will launch this year.

The site will allow internet users to see uploaded videos from the game. Apparently SingStar players will be able to say whether or not they want their videos to be viewed by the general public or held within the current, PS3-only system.

More through the link.

“The new Harmony mode will be available as a free upgrade via the PlayStation Network,” she said in this Q&A. “It will be compatible with the specially selected duet tracks. Once the upgrade goes out, we’ll be making more of these songs available in the SingStore, and there is a great selection on the vol. 2 disc.”

Plenty more through the link.