Virgin Gaming To Play Tournament Host To Ubi Games

New-minted competitive online gaming hub Virgin Gaming has struck a deal with Ubisoft to host tournaments surrounding the company's upcoming games, starting with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier due for release in early 2011. Virgin Gaming CEO Rob Segal called his company's service "a convergence of social networking, video games and competitive gaming," commenting, "we are excited that Ubisoft shares our vision for the platform and its potential.” "We have an exciting lineup of multiplayer titles this year that we believe will be a perfect fit for gamers to play and compete against each other in a tournament setting,” said Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc. Virgin Gaming announced its new platform at E3 earlier this summer, partnering with tournament facilitator WorldGaming to reveal what it described as "a convergence of video games, social networking and competitive online gaming." The company's said it plans to give away over $1 million in cash and prizes to players in its first year, and says Ubisoft is just one of many industry partners it plans to announce in the coming months, with further details promised soon. Competitive gaming is gaining attention in recent days; earlier today, competitive gaming platform Titan Gaming acquired gamer social network app Xfire (thereby changing its name to Xfire in the process) and aiming for the same space as Virgin Games. The recent blockbuster launch of Blizzard's StarCraft II, which sold 1.5 million units globally in its first 48 hours on the market, could help draw attention to competitive gaming, as its predecessor has long been backed by a thriving eSports scene particularly in Korea.