Competitive gaming company Virgin Gaming launched an Xbox Tournaments app on Xbox Live today, with plans to bring sports-based competitive gaming to Xbox 360 owners.
The free app allows players to check out Virgin Gaming's Xbox Live tournaments, enter them, play in them and track their progress on the leaderboards. It's currently available in the U.S., Canada and U.K., and launch titles for its first tournament include EA Sports' Madden NFL 13, NHL 13 and FIFA 13, along with 2K Sports' NBA 2K13. According to Virgin Gaming, additional territories, games and features will be added to the app later.
"Competitive online gaming is increasingly becoming an important component of the video games industry, and the Xbox Tournaments app allows us to bring engaging tournaments to a large and...
The EA Sports Challenge Series has the potential to pull in spectators because it's an eSports tournament featuring sports games, said Virgin Gaming executive vice president Wim Stocks in an interview with Forbes.
Virgin Gaming held the second annual Challenge Series in Las Vegas earlier this month; players competed for a $1 million prize pool in the PlayStation 3 versions of Madden NFL 13, FIFA 13 and NHL 13. More than 150,000 entrants took part in the tournament, with the finals in Las Vegas hosting 896 competitors trying to finish in the money.
According to Stocks, the draw of a tournament like the Challenge Series is that as long as people understand the sports in question — football, soccer and hockey — they can follow the ups and downs of the competition.
"People who watch...
FIFA 13's Wii U launch trailer, released today, puts the game's GamePad functionality in motion, showing how players can tap the touchscreen to control action on and off the field.
Check out the trailer above to see features like "Lift and Look," which gives player's an on-field view of the game. For more on the Wii U's GamePad, be sure to check out our article and videos, which put the second screen of Nintendo's new console through its paces.
