January 5^th, 2005 (2:08pm) - In an interesting goodwill effort, Bruno Bonnell, the head of European games publisher Infogrames (the parent company on Atari), has gone on the record to say that he and his firm are ready to help French rival Ubisoft fight off a possible takeover bid by publishing giant Electronic Arts.

"Electronic Arts certainly did not enter Ubisoft’s capital to just stay at that level," commented the Infogrames CEO, who is also creative director of the company’s Atari subsidiary. "I hope Ubisoft will find ways to defend itself so that Infogrames does not become the last bastion in the European video games industry."

"When Ubisoft has defined the limits within which it is prepared to work, they know we are ready to listen," he stated. "It would be a pity to see great European creations end up in a relatively hegemonic U.S. conglomerate."

Unfortunately, Bonnell did not go into detail regarding what Infogrames could possibly do to help Ubisoft. Although, in an interesting turn of events, the French government has expressed its distaste towards EA’s investment and will be watching the situation carefully, possibly taking action if a EA takeover bid does indeed occur.