Atari and Firaxis Games Announce Sid Meier’s Pirates! For Xbox

Atari and Firaxis Games Announce
Sid Meier’s Pirates! For Xbox

Highly Anticipated Sequel Comes
to Windows in 2004 Xbox in 2005

BEVERLY, Mass., Aug. 13, 2004:
Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) and Firaxis Games announced today that Sid Meier’s
Pirates!® for the Xbox® video game system from Microsoft is currently in
development and is scheduled to release worldwide in spring 2005. Sid Meier’s
Pirates! for Windows will ship to retail stores worldwide on November 16, 2004.
The award-winning 1987 smash hit game, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, received
unprecedented critical acclaim and set the industry standard for innovative game
design with its unique blend of open-ended role-playing, real-time adventures
and thrilling action sequences.

"There has been great anticipation
for the long awaited return of Pirates! and to see what the team at Firaxis has
been able to accomplish with the franchise," said Nancy MacIntyre, vice
president of marketing, Atari, Inc. "We are pleased to follow-up what is sure to
be a great PC launch this holiday with an Xbox title next year."

"We’re thrilled to continue our
relationship with Atari to bring Pirates! not only to fans of the original game
but to a new generation of gamers," said Jeff Briggs, President and CEO of
Firaxis Games. "Pirates! is among the most popular and loved titles in gaming
history and Sid and the team here are working hard to uphold the high standards
of the franchise."

In Sid Meier’s Pirates! for Windows
and Xbox, players take the leading role of a Pirate Captain in the 17th century
Caribbean – amassing fortune and fame in an attempt to seize a rightful place as
one of the most revered and feared pirates in history. Players test their skills
as a sea captain exploring the high seas and exotic ports in a richly detailed
3-D world. As your reputation and skills grow, so will the size and quality of
your crew, your ability to take on larger enemy ships, raid and plunder heavily
fortified ports, and locate ancient treasure.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! for Xbox will
include a Vs mode and will take advantage of many Xbox Live! capabilities, high
fidelity 5.1 Dolby Digital surround and will support HDTV.

Additional information about the
franchise and Sid Meier’s Pirates! for Windows and Xbox can be found at
www.atari.com/pirates or
www.pirates-game.com. 

About Firaxis

FIRAXIS Games, home of legendary
designer Sid Meier, is one of the world’s premier independent game development
studios. Headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, FIRAXIS has created some of the
most successful and award-winning PC games on the market. The company’s most
recent hit titles include: Sid Meier’s SimGolf (published by Electronic Arts);
the mega-hit Sid Meier’s Civilization III (published by Atari); Sid Meier’s
Civilization III: Play The World, the multiplayer expansion pack; and Sid
Meier’s Civilization III: Conquests, the second expansion pack to the legendary
strategy game. Firaxis has a rich history of creating great games including: Sid
Meier’s Gettysburg!, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier’s Alien Crossfire and
Sid Meier’s Antietam!. For more information on FIRAXIS Games visit
www.firaxis.com.

About Atari

New York-based Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq:
ATAR) develops interactive games for all platforms and is one of the largest
third-party publishers of interactive entertainment software in the U.S. The
Company’s 1,000+ titles include hard-core, genre-defining games such as
DRIV3RTM, Enter the MatrixTM, Neverwinter NightsTM, StuntmanTM, Test Drive®,
Unreal® Tournament 2004, and Unreal® Championship; and mass-market and
children’s games such as Backyard SportsTM, Nickelodeon’s Blue’s CluesTM and
Dora the ExplorerTM, Civilization®, Dragon Ball Z® and RollerCoaster Tycoon®.
Atari, Inc. is a majority-owned subsidiary of France-based Infogrames
Entertainment SA (Euronext 5257), the largest interactive games publisher in
Europe. For more information, visit www.atari.com
.

About Xbox

Xbox
http://www.xbox.com is the video game system from Microsoft that
brings people together for the most exhilarating game and entertainment
experiences. Xbox delivers an expansive collection of breakthrough games,
powerful hardware and the unified Xbox Live online service. The new tagline,
"it’s good to play together," captures the spirit of Xbox as the social hub of
the new digital entertainment lifestyle. Xbox is now available in North America,
Asia, Europe and Australia.

About Xbox Live

Xbox Live, which launched in the
United States Nov. 15, 2002, allows gamers to play multiplayer Xbox games with
other gamers everywhere via a broadband connection. With a built-in hard drive
and Ethernet port, the Xbox console is the only video game system built from the
ground up for online gaming, negating the need to buy additional, costly
peripherals or upgrades. Xbox Live enables gamers to easily find their friends;
talk to other players during game play through the Xbox Communicator headset;
download current statistics, new levels and characters to their Xbox hard drive;
and play online-all exclusive features to Xbox Live.

(C) 2004 Atari, Inc. All rights
reserved.

Xbox is a registered trademark of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.