Two years ago, Atari Europe was fortunately in the safe zone, despite the mother company's grim and disheartening financial report of Q2 2007. Back then, the problem was isolated only to the US offices, and the Atari branch was said to be unharmed by the restructuring overseas. Today, however, Atari Europe is no more, now having been officially acquired by Namco Bandai.

Oh goodie. Japan is getting three more DSi colors and the thing hasn't even come out yet in other regions. But I shouldn't gripe. You can do that for yourself.

Go the full article to see what Japan's getting and you're not.

As the attorney general of South Australia, Michael Atkinson has been one of the most rabid critics against the introduction of an R18+ classification in Australia. This has made him a frequent target for Aussie gamers. GameSpot recently had a chance to ask Mr. Atkinson why he's so against the R18+ rating. Check out Mr. Atkinson's point of view after the jump.

Electronic Arts has now released an official statement in response to the circulating rumors that  they have let go Pandemic Studios in Brisbane, Australia. While they did admit that their upcoming job cuts will affect studios, they did not divulge any more specific details about it.

As rumors would have it, Electronic Arts has shut down the Brisbane, Australia office of Pandemic Studios. Says a "reliable source", the shut down was more of a "find a new publisher" thing, rather than a "sorry, we'll have to kill you off" scenario.

Fallout 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC) has only recently been cleared for release in Australia after the whole drugs debacle, but it looks like Bethesda's Pete Hines is still a bit peeved. According to the Fallout 3 product manager, censorship laws that differ from country to country are "frustrating". More from Hines in the full article.

Nintendo fans in Australia will finally have some reasons to celebrate: both the Wii and the DS have reached impressive milestones in sales numbers, and fans will finally have a number of new titles to chew on in the upcoming months. The numbers and the list of upcoming games for Australia in the full article!

Nintendo Australia is sending word that it will be holding a beginner class this Thursday for DS owners in their region. The class will teach visitors about the basics of handling titles like Animal Crossing, and Nintendogs. Further details are available in the full article.

Australia based gamers will be glad to know that they're going to be getting some big name Square Enix titles such as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for the Sony PlayStation Portable and Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors for the Nintendo DS this year. To find out more, head on over to the full article.

Here's something that may get gamer's hopes up: according to a columnist, gaming industry representatives are allegedly trying to pressure the Australian government into implementing an equivalent of an R-18 rating for games. What's good about it? It means that Mature-rated games won't get banned in the land down under. Read more about it in the full article.