Once a video games pioneer, now Atari is a company in decline as Japanese games publisher Namco Bandai moves to complete a takeover of its European operations. MCV reports that Atari Europe’s sales and marketing staff will be transferred to a new business, Distribution Partners, which will exclusively handle Atari’s games outside the US until 2014.  Namco Bandai bought a 34 percent stake in Atari Europe in March 2008 and according to MCV will move to buy up the rest of the shares in the coming weeks from Atari’s French-based parent company Infogrames. But it’s not a total retreat from Europe: the company will retain a London studio which opened in September last year. Atari already sells Namco Bandai games under license in Europe such as Family Ski and Snowbaord for the Nintendo Wii.

Given the on-going boom in European video game sales, Namco Bandai sees an opportunity to expand and is expected to increase the company’s headcount in the UK and across Europe. Atari’s UK marketing chief David Miller said this week: “We believe that DP will become a wholly-owned Namco Bandai games company soon, but this process requires time and we will comment further when we have an anticipated closing date.” Bandai isn’t the only Japanese games giant moving into to Europe: in March Final Fantasy maker Square Enix completed a £84 million takeover of Tomb Raider developer Eidos.

Meanwhile another Japanese games giant Konami today reported a profit fall of almost 41 percent to 10.9 billion Yen (£74.63 million) in the 12 months to March 31, though revenue was up 4.2 percent to 310 billion Yen (£2.12 billion) Release. Yesterday PS3 maker Sony (NYSE: SNE) reported a $1 billion loss in the year to March 31, its first full-year loss in 14 years.