The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) has claimed that Atari's planned shift towards predominately online content supports its case for the PEGI ratings system over the BBFC.

Following an MCV interview in which Atari's CEO, David Gardner, discussed the strategy, Paul Jackson (the director general of ELSPA) said, “Atari’s decision to shift retail emphasis to online further emphasises why the British video game industry specifically favours the PEGI age ratings system. Only PEGI fully assesses all games content. It is designed specifically for interactive software. It understands games and their potential for infinite variations. That’s why it is backed by the British games industry.”

The comments came from Gardner following a new deal with Namco-Bandai. "We’re taking the first steps here. Over five years, Namco Bandai will probably own the majority of it, and it will no longer be our responsibility and Atari will be just an online company – within five years 90 per cent of our products will be online", he stated^†.

Phil Harrison, president of Atari, followed that more reservedly by stating, "I wouldn’t put a date on it just yet – it’ll be driven by the next transition of hardware platforms as to whether or not they have physical games associated with them or not." It's interesting that Harrison, who was formerly head of Sony's Worldwide Studios and so knows a bit about hardware, was unsure whether boxed games will feature at all in the next wave of consoles.

SPOnG contacted Atari for its position in the ongoing PEGI versus BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) debate, but no comment was available at the time of press.

ELSPA has been pushing hard for PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) of late. It recently lined up several notable British games industry figures to voice their support for the body.

SPOnG recently spoke with Mike Rawlinson on the subject of PEGI versus the BBFC. Explaining how instigating PEGI would work over here (given the fact it has a broader catchment than just the UK), he told us, "PEGI would be brokered through the Video Standards Council. And the VSC would review all UK-relevant PEGI ratings. That wouldn't just be a sort of half-hearted exercise, that would be a very thorough process of review to ensure that the PEGI rating is correct." You can see the interview in full here.

^{†Source: MCV}