During the big E3 video game conference in Los Angeles, chip making giants Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) announced a number events which it intends to gain access into the highly lucrative high-end PC gamer market.
Intel announced expanding its partnership with ESL, the leading e-sport company globally. In the new expanded partnership, Intel will be ESL’s official technology partner and will be tasked with providing support to ESL’s e-sports studios, events as well as broadcasting operations. All ESL’s amateur as well as pro tournament PCs will run on Intels’ latest Core i7 processors. Additionally, ESL’s production hardware will run on a combination of Intel Xeon and Intel Core processors.
Both companies have also launched the Intel Grand Slam for “Counter Strike, a worldwide initiative which is aimed at awarding $1 million in bonus prizes to the first time that will win four “CS:GO” competitions by DreamHack and ESL in a period of 12 months.
Apart from its partnership with ESL, Intel also partnered with Oculus, owned by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). The two companies have unveiled VR Challenger League, a competitive virtual-reality gaming series. The game will be airing starting July and will feature Ready At Dawn Studios’ “Echo Arena” and Insomniac Games’ “The Unspoken.”
The VR e-sport challenge will be aired online and will feature key events as well as players around the globe. Finals will take place at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship which will be held in Katowice, Poland next year.
According to Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group Gregory Bryant, E-sports is a cultural phenomenon which is expected to attract over 500 million users globally by 2020. Additionally, Intel has announced releasing the schedule for its Core X-series processor family, which mainly targets the high-end market. The new four- to 10-core processors will be available on the market starting June 19 and the company will commence shipment to customer the following week.
Intel will start shipment of its Core i9-7980X Extreme Edition processor in October this year.
Intel closed the Monday trading session with a +0.06% or +$0.02 raise to trade at $35.73
