During a presentation at the Game Developers Conference today, Microsoft announced a new set of tools that will allow game developers to run competitive tournaments through the Xbox Live service.
The tools will allow developers to customize these competitive tournaments depending on the game. Options will also be available to create a number of different styles of tournaments to suit different genres. Called the “Xbox Live Tournaments Program,” the service will be supported on Xbox One and the Windows 10 platform. This will be made possible through the Universal Windows Platform, which came under a bit of fire the other week.
During the presentation, Microsoft also revealed that it’s partnering with eSports groups, Facelt and the Electronic Sports League and that the program will feature “deep integration” with both of these groups.
A preview version of the “Xbox Live Tournaments Program” development kit is available to any game developers from today. Microsoft believes that consumers will begin to see the first titles with competitive tournaments later this year.
It will be particularly interesting to see if these competitive tournaments could possibly link in with the cross-system play feature that Microsoft announced a few days ago. While it may not be a possibility depending on Sony’s end, we’d love to see it happen.
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