Financially troubled publisher Atari has announced the completion of its strategic internal studio divesture, revealing the sale of Shiny Entertainment to Foundation 9 Entertainment.

Shiny Entertainment is responsible for quite a few high-profile games, including the atrociously atrophied Enter the Matrix and, more recently, The Matrix: Path of Neo. As part of the deal, Atari will retain its current project planning formerly developed by Shiny, including Earthworm Jim. It is not known if there were any changes at Shiny following the transaction.

The OC Register reports (registration required) that David Perry, the head of Shiny Entertainment, the studio most popular for ‘Earthworm Jim’ and the ‘Matrix’ games, has resigned just before Atari announced plans to reduce workforce redundancy and probably the sale of internal game studios of which Shiny is a part of.

“Atari can go ahead and sell Shiny but I think I can help too because I’m on the board of a lot of things. I can bring a lot of parties to the table and I can do that faster if I hit the streets myself,” said Perry, who began hitting his contacts Friday and said there was “a lot of interest out there.”

“If I’m an employee of Atari, then I’d be stepping all over them. This way, I’m representing a buyer. I can act swiftly and get buyers on the table. I pitched Shiny last time and got $47 million.”

This “last time” was back in 2002, when Interplay sold Shiny to Atari for a cool $47 million.

It’s no secret that Atari has been in a dire position for some time now - the publisher reported a net loss of $5 million and has had its fair share of other bad news. However, the company’s CEO Bonnell, talking to MCV, rejected claims that the company was dying. He does admit that Atari is in the red and remarked that they might be looking into selling off some of their studios.

A quick rundown of their studios on MCV includes Reflections, known best for their work on the spectacularly abysmal Driver 3, who’s working on Driver 4; Melbourne House and Eden Studios, both of which are working on current and next-gen versions of Test Drive; Paradigm working on Stuntman 2 and Battlezone; and finally, the most popular of them all - Shiny which has worked on the universally panned Enter the Matrix and the better-received Path of Neo, both titles based on The Matrix movie trilogy.

Bonnell also said that the American branch of Atari may see some staff let go off - these staff are referred to as “redundancies”. In what can be termed as a followup, the company issued a press release announcing the implementation of its “corporate action plan.” The plan acts on cost control, disposes non-core assets and places a stronger emphasis on external development studios. Atari will also reduce its worldwide workforce by approximately 20%.