VOOM HD Network To Cover WSVG Tournaments

Voom HD Networks announced that it has signed a deal with organizers of The World Series of Video Games (WSVG), Microsoft, and NCsoft for its television channel GamePlay HD, a high-definition channel targeted at the gaming audience. The announcement was made today at a press conference in San Francisco by Mark DeAngelis, Vice President of Programming and Development at Voom HD Networks. As part of this new deal, GamePlay HD will air coverage of the first three circuit events of the 2006 WSVG: the Lanwar competition in Louisville, KY (held June 16-19, 2006/air date September 13-15), DreamHack LAN party in Jonkoping, Sweden (held June 17-21, 2006 /air date September 28-29), and the Intel Summer Championship in Dallas (held July 5-9, 2006/air date TBD). Voom HD Networks also signed an agreement with Microsoft to cover the Project Gotham Racing 3 international online tournament. For the May 2006 online regionals, GamePlay HD was allowed to access Xbox Live in order to create a virtual television studio, with eight simultaneous in-game cameras, feeds from live players, and a director calling the camera shots. The event featured 192 players from Europe, Asia and North America (culled from an original 30,000 entrants). The netwrork then followed the finalists to Milan, Italy, where the concluding round was held at the Lamborghini factory. The Project Gotham Racing 3 tournament show will premiere August 16-19th. Finally, the HD gaming network has been airing this month the first Guild Wars World Championships, taped in Taipei, Taiwan in February 2006. Today the network reached an agreement with NCsoft to cover the next World Championship event, this time to be held in Germany on August 24th, with competitors playing Guild Wars Factions. The program will air in October. "There is exploding interest in competitive gaming, and well-produced television coverage is going to be critical to the growth of this sector,” commented DeAngelis. “At GamePlay HD, we combine a passion for gaming with a record for creating award-winning broadcast programming. We intend to be the best source anywhere for the world's top competitions." He added: "After just four months on air, we are incredibly fortunate to be getting the support and partnership of the most dynamic organizations in this space."