TOKYO -- Troubled game company Atari has been warned
by the NASDAQ stock exchange that it faces delisting unless it can raise the
market value of its shares, the company has revealed.
According to the stock market warning, Atari must boost
its minimum market value of its public shares to $15 million for ten consecutive
days before the deadline of March 20.
This is the third such warning the company has
received in the past six months, the most recent for not filling its financial
results for the quarter ending on June 30 of last year.
Atari's financial troubles may impact the fate of
the popular "Dragon Ball Z" series of games, which it has developed and sold
under license to US-based Funimation.
Atari "Dragon Ball Z" license expired last
September and, after negotiations with Funimation, signed a deal in December for
a reported $3.5 million that renews the
license until January 2010.
But if Atari, which recorded a $12 million loss for
the first quarter of fiscal 2007, is delisted, it may not sit well with
20th Century Fox, which is producing a live-action
"Dragon Ball" pic for an August 15 release in the
U.S., with James Wong helming and Justin Chatwin starring as Goku, the pic's
super-powered boy hero.
Neither Atari not Fax have made a comment about the
fate of the game series, which is a linchpin to the pic's marketing strategy.
The latest in the series is "Dragon Ball Budokan Tenkaichi 3."
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