Electronic Arts label and
Madden house EA Sports said this week that it signed an agreement with Virgin Gaming, which will now be the official provider of online tournaments for EA Sports.
According to the companies, the partnership will have online tournament platform Virgin Gaming provide all head-to-head online gaming competitions, pay-to-enter and sponsored video game tournaments for select, unspecified EA Sports games on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The partnership involves EA Sports integrating the Virgin Gaming tournament platform directly into EA Sports games.
The platform will provide "seamless web functionality and enhanced community tools for competitive gaming" on Xbox 360 and PS3, the companies said. The first tournaments under the agreement will begin early this year.
Virgin Gaming CEO Rob Segal described his company's service as a "unique convergence of competitive gaming, video games and social/community networking."
EA Sports president Peter Moore said the Virgin agreement will provide players with "secure and impeccably managed online tournaments."
Reports that Richard Branson's Virgin Group would return to gaming emerged in May last year. Soon after, Virgin
announced a partnership with game tournament facilitator WorldGaming, which would be rebranded Virgin Gaming.
In August last year, Virgin Gaming
signed a similar partnership with Ubisoft to host tournaments for the company's games, starting with the upcoming
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
