Atari's parent company, the much-troubled Infogrames, had its shares suspended on the French stock market in Paris earlier today. The company issued a short statement saying: "Infogrames Entertainment has asked Euronext to temporarily suspend trading in all the Company's securities, in anticipation of a press release announcing the Group's debt restructuring plan."

Following the much-hyped launch of Test Drive Unlimited this month, it's not the best news for the publisher. In a bid to tackle its losses, the company has been shedding some of its key assets, having already sold star developer Reflections and the Driver intellectual property to Ubisoft earlier this year for $24 million, not to mention flogging Timeshift to Vivendi and Stuntman to THQ.

The once mighty Infogrames has owned the once mightier Atari brand since buying it from toy maker Hasbro back in 2001. SPOnG will endeavour to find out more from our sources at Atari in the coming days as to what this restructure means for the company. Should it go up for sale, which is always one possibility, one question remains; Who would buy it? It's hard to see it being of much, if any, value to other major publishers, most of whom are obviously concentrating on building up their own brands, although it would perhaps be of value to a smaller player looking to make moves into the lucrative retro market.