CCP Games CEO Hilmar Petursson has told Edge details of its new retail boxed version of EVE Online, revealed why he wanted Atari to distribute, and has not denied the company’s rumored console FPS.

Last week CCP games announced that a boxed version of its highly-popular MMO EVE Online will launch across the US, Europe and Asia in March 2009. The retail edition will come with a free 60-day subscription and nine previously-released expansions to the game. Edge has understood that the retail box will sell for “around €40” ($50). 

The retail distribution deal was made with the economically-revitalised publisher Atari, a company which had recently declared that around 90 percent of its products will be online “within five years”.

“After seeing many MMOs being sold at retailers this year we realised that retail still has a strong place in MMO games,” says Petursson (pictured), “so we started to talk to various companies which had strong distribution channels.”

“At one point we had [Atari executives] David Gardner and Phil Harrison here in Iceland for a visit, and we exchanged our visions for our companies and it was a real meeting of the minds. Atari has historically been strong in third-party distribution, and now with their new management I found the company very encouraging to work with.”

Petursson said that CCP will benefit from Atari’s strength and experience, and was excited about the brand’s recent resurgence. “I would say there is this level of revivalism and enthusiasm at Atari, which is exciting, and it’s great to help in such a turnaround story in such a historic brand.”

Edge also asked to clarify the rumor that CCP is working on a console-based FPS (of which a brief video of the ‘Halo-like shooter’ was shown at this year’s EVE Fanfest). Petursson would not confirm or deny the speculation, though he did say that “historically at the EVE Fanfest we give the attendees glimpses of what we’re working on in terms of future EVE developments. And we do this in part to gauge the audiences’ reaction to figure out how we should prioritise our future work.”