Home Page / xbox / X / Xbox / News Listing / News

Microsoft has announced that X03, the European press event in Southern France, will be the location of the world's first Xbox Live global gaming tournament. On September 17, the emerging champion will walk away with a trophy, a year's worth of Microsoft Game Studios titles, including Halo 2, Fable, and Project Gotham Racing 2; a copy of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 from Ubi Soft and the bragging rights associated with being the best Xbox Live gamer in the Western world.

But it's more than player reputation on the line. Gamers from the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands will be representing their countries and competing for national pride. Cultural and language barriers will fall by the wayside as cross-Atlantic rivalries are settled with some friendly, online tactical warfare.

To enter the tournament, gamers simply need to pick up a copy of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Island Thunder for Xbox and start fragging enemies on Xbox Live immediately. Players can check their progress worldwide by viewing the leaderboards on Xbox Live. The top player in US and Canada as of 11:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, August 26 will win travel, accommodations and entry to this year's X03, held in a secret location in the South of France near Nice. X03 gives European games press, retail representatives and selected consumers the chance to test new Xbox and Xbox Live-enabled games heading to Xbox this Christmas and beyond. Now it sets the stage for one of the hottest competitions around. Details on the European portion of this tournament will be announced next week.

After conquering their own countries, the ten finalists will then be competing for the ultimate title of the top Xbox Live gamer in the Western world. The tournament finals will be held on September 17 at X03. The game to decide it all will be the Xbox exclusive Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, available to these lucky few a full three months before its scheduled release. All finalists will receive trophies plus a copy of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 from Ubi Soft. For more information, please visit the tournament page on the newly relaunched Xbox.com at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/tournaments.