This was the year. The year E3 was to come back and be the mighty force that no gaming company could ever think to miss, and now Atari has thought to miss it. Reports are coming in that the company has drawn out from exhibiting at the show and while they will have people there in attendance they will not be showing off their games. This is only three weeks before the show, and the E3 site still shows them as having both a room and a booth at the event.

The company released a statement saying, “Atari has made the proactive decision to attend but not exhibit at this year’s E3 event. Although we feel E3 benefits the entire games business, we are very focused around other selling and marketing initiatives for our upcoming Ghostbusters, Champions Online and other to be announced titles.” Why the sudden change of heart and why so close to the event itself? We’re not sure. We have of course shot an email off to Atari, but we’re guessing we’ll get the same response as everyone else, which is a complete lack of one.

This explains two things. One is why Atari had yet to schedule an appointment with us fot E3 and the second is why this will be the only Ghostbusters hands-on you see for a while. Of course just because the company says they aren’t showing up at E3 or having an event in LA at the same time as E3 doesn’t mean we won’t keep pestering them until they invite us to a made up one.